Redemption
by DEMachina
Summary: The First Wizarding War is finally over, but Regulus Black knows that his fight is just beginning. Voldemort is far from defeated, any hopes of a proper relationship with his brother seem dismal at best, and he is haunted at nights with torture of his own making. Injured, wandless, hopelessly lost, can he turn the past around and find what it takes to make the world forgive him? AU
1. October 1980

Regulus stepped out of his house, standing still on the marble porch, watching the dreary streets of London bustling with crowds and noises and other things he could not put a name to.

" _Give it back, Sirius!"_ he heard a young voice cry in acute distress, followed by a taunting laughter.

" _It's a plant, Reg," his brother said. "Just a lame plant."_

" _Well, it's_ mine _," the proprietary tone in Regulus' voice was unusual for a six-year-old._

 _Sirius, too, was evidently shocked by this also, and his voice became cooler, losing all its previous joking tone. "Let me guess,_ Mommy _bought it for you?" the envy in his voice was thinly veiled by mockery, but Regulus blushed, too affected by Sirius's words to notice his envy._

" _Yes, and I'm supposed to plant it in two hours, or it's going to dry up!" he reached out for the plant in Sirius' hand, but Sirius was taller than him, even then. He held it out of Regulus' grasp and Regulus jumped up and down to retrieve it, rather undignified._

" _Give it back, Sirius!" Regulus demanded once again. Mother had bought him a small dittany as a reward for his good behavior at the latest party at Grimmauld Place. If he managed to grow it well until it reached its maturity, Mother promised to buy him a rose bush. But now, it seemed that all he could do was to keep it from dying before his eyes._

" _Or what? You'll tell on Mommy?" Sirius mocked._

" _Or I'll tell Father that you've been sneaking out of the house and talking to Muggles!" Regulus said, without thinking, in a moment of distress._

 _This was the last straw for Sirius, who, on throwing the delicate plant on the ground, promptly punched Regulus in the eye. Regulus shrieked in pain and began to sob, reaching, even in the midst of embarrassed defeat, for the little plant he had to take care of._

" _Coward!" Sirius bellowed at his face before stomping back into the house._

 _Still crying, Regulus crawled to the shady spot he'd reserved for the dittany and fumbled with his trowel, wiping his nose every often as he removed small stones and weeds to create a place for his plant. He would name it Arcturus—it was his middle name, he liked his middle name, it had a resonating sound, it seemed. His grandfather was named Arcturus. He sometimes came to visit and gave Regulus and Sirius chocolate frogs. He liked his grandfather Arcturus, but he didn't quite like Aunt Lucretia._

 _The earth was soggy, and it stuck between Regulus' fingernails, but Regulus was glad. It was an ideal environment for Arcturus to grow in. Humid and shady. Yes, young Arcturus would grow up well, just as Regulus would one day. His mother said so._

" _You would be a young, handsome man one day, Regulus," she said every day, stroking his black hair. Her tone was warm, not unkind—there was a possessive edge to it, and the warmth was limited only to those who met her expectations, but Regulus had not yet learned to realize that, only liked the fact that his mother complimented him, but not Sirius..._

The dittany, Regulus remembered, never had a chance to mature. The next morning, Regulus found his precious Arcturus trampled on violently. He'd yelled at Sirius, who had shouted back, and they were all called into his father's office for a session of self-repentance and flogging. Sirius, putting salve on his sore bottom, and Regulus, putting salve on his stinging hands, had resolved their differences. _It was so easy back then, wasn't it, Sirius?_ Regulus felt like laughing out loud at their petty fights. Things had been so simple back then, so uncomplicated, every difficulties obscured and veiled by youth, himself protected by ignorance and innocence...

" _Tommy is nice," Sirius said, as they tottered around the garden together. Regulus had gotten his rose bush despite his failure and the it reached her prime unfailingly every year, blossoming magnificently near the fence. Regulus crouched down on it and examined the ground critically, looking for weeds or any signs of bugs that may hinder the growth._

" _Does he know you''re a wizard?" he asked. Sirius' habitual escapades hadn't ceased—they were now eleven years old, and a few months before enrolling into Hogwarts. Regulus tried to hide the fact that it hurt his brother preferred going outside, risking his neck in the process, to play with Muggle boys and Muggle girls, to staying home and reading books with him. Regulus tried to subdue his anger at his brother, his envy at the Muggle boys who instigated those feelings in him when they should've been below his notice._

 _The spiteful feelings were not usual in the young Black, had it not been for the fact that Regulus was already stressed about Hogwarts—what if he couldn't follow the classes? Sirius, he knew, was talented—uncle Alphard said so, every time they had a family meeting. He said nothing about Regulus, nothing at all, and this worried him greatly, even though Mother assured him that he was just as talented._

" _'Course not, don't be stupid," Sirius said._

 _Regulus didn't respond, but his silence spoke more than enough of his disapproval._

" _Don't know why you keep digging up dirt, only girls do it," Sirius said, defensively._

 _Regulus didn't reply, but his hands clenched into fists. Well, Sirius could go and play soccer with his Muggle friends Tommy and who else. He would stay home and do "girl things."_

" _Come on, let's go in, I'm hungry," Sirius complained, his thoughts already forgotten by the prospect of food. Regulus followed reluctantly, casting one last glance at his roses._

The rose bush in question was now wildly in bloom again, despite his growing negligence over the years. It was a magical plant, enchanted so every rose would be a shade different. Subtle, Regulus knew, and very little appreciated. His long, slender fingers swept across one of the flowers delicately, pricking his forefinger on a particularly long thorn. A single drop of blood oozed from his fingertip, and Regulus stared at it intently.

" _Ow!" she cried in pain._

" _What's wrong?" Regulus asked, trying not to be too concerned—Blacks were never concerned, as far as his father was concerned. But Regulus couldn't keep his worry out of his voice as he examined his friend's thumb, the blood pouring out of a nasty cut._

" _It's fine, really," she said, embarrassed, drawing her hand hastily away._

" _I'll go clean up, but you'll have to slice the dragon liver..." their eyes shifted to the cutting board, and the liver which had turned blue from contact with human blood._

" _Oh, no," she'd moaned._

" _Well, what do we have here?" the booming voice of Slughorn reached them from behind and Regulus and Alex both jumped in surprise as Slughorn drew closer, examining the desk._

" _Well, Regulus, excellent work with the potion, but I'd say you'd have to fetch a new liver. And Miss Wilson, try to be more careful next time," was all he said before he'd left. Alex was obviously disappointed, wiping off the blood on her hand and refusing to look at anywhere as Slughorn loudly praised Evans' potion._

 _Regulus gave her a comforting squeeze on her wrist before she left._

Regulus opened the gate slowly, pushing it with his whole body numbly as he stepped onto the gray cobblestones of a London street. His feet carried him on its own, his mind not in control of anything but his memories, his thoughts...

" _Stinking Muggles," Bellatrix was saying venomously as Narcissa and Regulus tried to keep up with her swift pace._

" _Filthy, vile, undeserving..." Bellatrix kept on going._

" _I know, Bella, it was unpleasant for me, too," Narcissa said tiredly, already familiar with her sister's sentiments. She shared them, yes, they all did, and the fact that they just had to pass through the Muggle London because the Floo Network was down did not help in any way, but Bellatrix's malicious voice was not at all a pleasant company._

" _It is ridiculous that we have to suffer them," Regulus acknowledged reasonably. "But for now, we have a mission to do." Regulus remembered what the Dark Lord had ordered him to do—he would require something from Borgin &Burkes—but oh, he knew what he had to obtain, what he had to do, would not be met with her approbation. And her approbation should not have bothered him—he had a cause, he was an idealist, he could not let his emotion get in the way of achieving what he believed to be a better future for his kind._

 _And yet..._

Contemplating, Regulus did not notice the mailbox which he promptly bumped into unceremoniously. Massaging his abdomen, Regulus looked around. There were stone buildings, old ones like his home. Tall, steel lampposts with their olive paint peeling off, and dingy, cemented road blocks that was distasteful to one's eyes. Street trees were immobile for there was no wind blowing, and the sky itself was bleak gray. The cars made honking noises and they emitted gas that Regulus didn't like. Exhaust gas, Regulus remembered from his Muggle Studies. Revolting.

The sound of laughter broke him from his glum observation. A young couple was sitting on a nearby bench, with a baby in their arms. A young man—Regulus assumed he was the father—held the baby up in the sky, as though the baby was flying. Regulus felt his lips twitch into a smile as he imagined the baby on a broomstick, feeling the air rushing behind him as he beheld the world from above. The woman, smiling, rummaged through her handbag and produced a small toy that the baby reached out for delightedly, again laughing that little laugh that had caught Regulus' attention.

Domestic life had never appealed to him, quite possibly because he knew how horrible it could be. What domestic life he had—with his parents, and before the Unspeakable Betrayal, Sirius, was tense, filled with frustration, hurt, and, what seemed to him, disillusionment. Sirius and he had always been, consciously or unconsciously, on competing grounds. They supported different ideals, stood up for different people. Their personalities clashed, and their methods were incomprehensible to each other. Their parents, although they were not indifferent, were less than helpless in uniting the family. Instead, they chose an easier option of favoring the Good Son and abandoning the Bad Son, who in turn abandoned them...

The happy smile of the mother quite mystified Regulus, who could only watch her brown hair swaying to and fro as she nodded in front of the baby, encouraging it to do something—what? Oh, she was teaching him to say 'Mummy.' He wondered what was the first word he'd uttered. His mother would not remember—his mother would not have nodded in front of him, teaching him to say 'Mummy.' His mother had always been 'Mother' as long as he could remember.

Narcissa had a baby boy, didn't she? Yes, a few months back—Draco, Regulus recalled. A pudgy little thing, with pale gray eyes like his father. Narcissa had doted upon it, much to Regulus' discomfort. Bellatrix, too, was please, to everyone's surprise, until she began to enthusiastically enumerate things the baby Draco would be honored to do for the Dark Lord one day. Narcissa had gone pale, drew up the little Draco more closely than she'd been holding him, and was silent for the rest of Regulus' visit. Narcissa's protectiveness—yes, he'd seen it before, in Rebecca Goyle, Rebecca Parkinson now, who held her baby boy in a similar fashion. Protective. Adoring.

A bitter smile etched itself on Regulus' face as he remembered his mother's enthusiastic reaction to his desire to serve the Dark Lord, how she fretted over his robes on his first meeting with his master. How she pushed him, encouraged him to take on missions even when he was tired, because he would be doing a noble thing, and serving not only the Dark Lord, but the Ancient and Noble House of Black. It seemed that protection and adoration from a mother was a privilege to the chosen ones whom Fortune deemed worthy enough.

If he were married...

Regulus shook the possibility from his mind, but his fingers clasped themselves around a thin golden band that he carried with him wherever he went. He'd planned the whole thing by himself, not wishing to involve anyone into it except himself. It would be the one thing he committed himself to because he wanted to, because he wished to—for himself. Others be damned. Or so he had thought, before everything went horribly astray.

It had been low of him, he knew, to have withheld information from her about her mother, when he knew she had been worried sick about her for months. He excused himself that he had no right to carry on classified information without an express permission from his master—but it was inhumane of him, he knew that, he was sorry for it. He also knew that his not telling her about her mother had simply been the last straw—had he not become a Death Eater, had he not spent time with other Death Eaters, had he not killed, tortured innocent people who deserved better... He had put it all upon himself, he knew. He was foolish to expect her to follow the same path he'd taken, selfish to have tried to persuade her to do so.

Yet he found himself wondering, despite years of denying even the possibility of their union. He wondered if she would've accepted him, had he asked her, had things been different and there was no war raging outside school and he had not chosen a side. He wondered if they would have parted after graduation—or would they have left platform nine and three-quarters together, hand-in-hand, about to face the world together? He wondered what kind of a vow he would've made to her, the color of the dress she would have worn. He wondered what would it feel like, to be joined with her in the most intimate way two people could be joined, to wake up every day and find her in his arms. What it would be like to have breakfast together, leave for work, come back home in the evening and spend the rest of the day together, their days passing and continuing in bliss.

A normal life.

But they were not meant for that life, at least not in this lifetime. Regulus had always believed in magic—still did, despite the Dark Lord's pretensions and his society's general twisted way—and fate had always seemed to him the most determinate form of magic, the most perfect magic. The ways of nature and magic taking course—that was fate. It could not be helped, and it could not be altered. His fate was death filled with remorse and humility—he could see it in front of him, brighter than the night stars, and just as lonely. He would not resist it, for it was something he had always believed in, and he always acted on what he believed in. He would die doing the right thing, standing square-shouldered and firm-footed, enduring what fate had set up for him.

If a life with her was never meant for him, then he would bear this life without complaint.

It had started to rain, and Regulus cursed his lack of foresight as thick, cold drops of rain began to fall upon his face. The sky had been dull gray, had it not? He had even stared glumly at it, trying to figure out the meaning it was trying to convey. Apparently it had been telling him that he should have brought out an umbrella. He had no wand, wearing Muggle clothes, so there was no way of sheltering himself from the rain. Regulus looked around—there was a small cafe nearby, just across the street. Its bright yellow light reminded him of the life he could not have, and he marched there, his hands stuck in his jacket pocket. A few coins jingled between his fingers. A few pounds, he'd wager. He'd be able to stay there for a while, Muggle cafe or not.

Regulus entered, a bell hanging on the door jingling as opened the door. A few faces turned to his direction before quickly resuming their own affairs. There were some girls who stared at him for a few seconds more than it was necessary, but Regulus chose to ignore them—it would be better if he didn't talk to the Muggle girls, for their own sake if not his own.

"What can I get you?" a middle-aged woman behind the counter asked brusquely. Regulus, although annoyed at her rudeness, studied the menu without letting his emotion show.

"Could I have a brownie and black tea?" Regulus said politely before handing the woman all the coins in his pockets. He would have no further use for them, after all. It would be pointless to hang upon every penny.

"Keep the change, please," Regulus said, before settling down on a secluded table near the window. A few minutes later, the woman brought him a cup of black tea with a milk jar and a dish stacked with three large squares of a brownie. Regulus thanked her for her unnecessary kindness. The woman merely grunted, but he thought he'd seen a slight blush on her cheeks.

The woman was probably a girl once, Regulus mused. A girl who had other girls to giggle with about silly things and who may have fancied a neighbor boy who smiled at her when she passed by. Perhaps she married the neighbor boy, or perhaps she grew up and moved out of hometown to see a bit more of a world. Regulus wondered how she ended up in her present position. Did she marry a baker, or did she need a method of supporting herself? What happened to the neighbor boy, and the friends she'd giggled with on warm summer evenings? What had happened to her that made her grunt instead of smile, that made her frown when she thought no one was looking? He would never be able to account may circumstances that befell on, or blessed, her, just as she would never be able to guess his feelings, his inner turmoil, the conflict.

He knew he could cheat death, ask Kreacher to take him away, but the idea was so unappealing, so _wrong_. Was there a hope for his reform? A reason that he should continue on? He didn't believe in second chances for those he'd killed, and he didn't believe in it now. His legacy, as he had once believed arrogantly, would not be emancipation of wizard society, magical beings taking over the world. No, his last action would be small, insignificant, unnoticeable. His disillusionment would remain unknown. It was best this way, to hide the truth—no one would get hurt, no one would question his loyalty. His family would remain safe, and unbeknownst to themselves, his friends and Alex.

How he wished to see her one last time! Before death ultimately tears them apart, before his last breath feebly warms the air. The desire would have to be suppressed. It would be unwise, he knew, to attempt in any way to contact her. He did not believe himself to be strong enough to let go of her once he held her in his eyes—he would not wish to leave, when fate had already sentenced his death a long time ago. He could not let it happen. Best let go of the temptation itself; he had a job to do, a job that would ensure her future, perhaps her survival and her happiness...

For she would be happy without him. She had friends who cared about her, Regulus knew, the bloodtraitors and Muggleborns whom he disdained but still protected her when she needed protection, who comforted her in times of distress. They would substitute him perfectly, perhaps be even a better company than he'd been. The war may last his time, but end before hers, and she may have some peace then, an opportunity to pursue her love of magic, a chance to live a life that she deserved. She would find a new love—perhaps she already had—and get married and have a family. Perhaps she would hold the baby up in the air as the brown-haired mother on a bench did so a while back and smile at the baby. And the father... oh, the father would be happy too, so happy...

It would not be him. Regulus did not feel anger, or jealousy—only sadness and regret and acceptance. It would not be him who would smile at the baby. He had his fate to follow and she would have a life. Such self-sacrifice would've made Regulus proud had he some expectations left in him—but he only had his own heart left to him, and it told him what he must do.

Downing the last drops of tea from his still-warm cup, Regulus carefully wrapped two eclairs that he had not touched with a brown paper napkin. He suddenly had an idea as to how he could use them. Thanking the cafe-owner, Regulus stepped outside of the bright yellow atmosphere, glad that the rain had stopped, just like his own state of mind. He jogged briskly back to the number 12, Grimmauld Place. The place had once been a center of fashion, his mother had once told him, when London, England was the center of wizard society. These days the wizards have spread across the globe, forming their own small ministries in deserts of Africa and distant mountains of China. Regulus shook his head amusedly at the inefficiency, the foolishness. What a waste, to divide, when they could be so stronger, so much healthier together, united as whole, cooperating whenever necessary. Wizards and Muggles and all the other creatures alike. How he saw all this so clearly now, how he could not see all this before. But that was to be his fatal flaw, his own foible.

The well-oiled gate swung easily at his lightest touch, and Regulus quite barged into his house, out of breath and determined.

He climbed up into his room quickly, not waiting for Kreature to greet him on the doorway. He had letters to write.

Setting down the sweet carefully on his desk, he opened his desk drawer and drew out the fake locket he'd carefully had crafted from the Goblins and a few rolls of parchments. Dipping his eagle-feather quill unsteadily into a pitch-black ink bottle, Regulus took a moment to calm himself before beginning to write. This letter, his last standing, would be dignified, perfect, worthy of the name Black.

 _To the Dark Lord_ , he wrote, a wry smile appearing on his lips.

 _I know I will be dead long before you read this but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret. I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in the hope that when you meet your match you will be mortal once more._

 _R.A.B_

Regulus frowned. Paradoxical. He was soon going to die, but he was going to destroy the locket as soon as he could. But that would hardly matter to his power-crazy coward of a master, Regulus decided. He almost wanted to chuckle at the prospect of the Dark Lord's furious face as he read this, but his expression quickly quickly turned somber—this was no laughing matter—he could not afford to be sidetracked...

He folded the letter neatly into a small square and put it in the locket, closing it with a small click. He placed the locket carefully on one side of the desk, as though it may vanish with a hint of disturbance. Rubbing his neck tiredly—for he felt suddenly very tired, the weight of what he was about to do crashing on his shoulders—he turned to the second piece of parchment.

 _Professor Dumbledore,_ he wrote, his hands much steadier than they had been as his elegant handwriting traced the lines of the parchment,

 _I enclose you the following package in the hope that the Dark Lord would be brought to end with the assistance it may be able to provide. I can only entreat you that its purpose is not to bring harm to people on either sides, but to save as many lives as possible._

Regulus hesitated, wondering if he ought to add more. However, he could not think of anything that he would like to confess to the Headmaster, not at all...

 _Regulus Black._

Regulus sighed, reaching for the secret compartment just above his bookshelf, where he had hidden his diary. The first several pages would not be relevant to the issue at hand; Regulus tore off the pages without a second thought. They would remain private, and quite possibly, forgotten. He slipped the letter between the cover and the first page, and bound the leather diary tightly with a thin cord of rope before sealing it with a Black crest.

Finally, he turned to the last piece of parchment in front of him. Dread washed over him like tidal waves, crashing into his mind before his eyes. Would she ever even read this letter? Would she even care?

The letter would not be addressed to.

 _Who knew Muggle brownies would catch my interest? I never imagined. The lady gave me a bit too much, so I thought I might share them with you. They're absolutely divine. Quite takes your mind off darker things._

Regulus paused again, wondering what he would like to say. So many things, so many bitter memories... He wanted to confess, to apologize, to beg and to plead—but none of them was his option.

 _It's a lovely autumn evening. I do hope you enjoy it._

Should he sign? No, she would recognize his handwriting at once. Yet, he wanted to call out to her one last time, even though she may not hear.

 _Love,_

 _Regulus._

Regulus let out a breath that he didn't know he'd been holding. He sat there for a long time, not noticing that the sun had set and the moon had risen. Contemplating the last moments of his life.

At last, he stood up, summoning the family owl and Edge.

"Be careful," he muttered lowly to Barny the Barn Owl, carefully tying his diary to his leg. "You must not be discovered or caught, do you understand?"

The old owl gave a doleful hoot as though it understood Regulus' intention. Regulus stroked its fading feathers warmly.

"You have served us well," he said quietly. "I thank you."

The owl gave one last look at Regulus before setting off to Hogwarts. Regulus knew it would be unwise to send Barny on such a lengthy journey, but he was the only owl Regulus could trust to cleverly maneuver itself to Hogwarts safely. Edge was far too young, far too personal.

"Now," he said, turning to Edge. "Wait a moment, will you?"

Regulus turned to the clumsily-wrapped brownies and carefully re-wrapped it with a long piece of parchment. He enclosed his letter in the package. Then, almost unconsciously, his hands went to his pocket, drawing out the thin golden band. Regulus stared at it for a moment, thinking.

He slipped the ring between the folded letter, along with his family ring.

"Fly along, now," he whispered to edge, as though fearing that some one might discover his greatest secret of all. "You know who to find. She's your new master, do you understand?"

The owl glared at him, as though telling him to stop talking nonsense.

"Go!" Regulus shooed him out the window. Edge took off, a small shadow in the night sky.

Regulus watched him disappear for a moment. Did he have anyone else he would like to say good-bye to? Several. Yet, his mother was now asleep, and he would not trouble her—tonight would perhaps be the last peaceful slumber she would have. And Sirius—he was happier without him, happier hating him. One day, Sirius might understand why Regulus did what he did; but now, all he could ask for was a small trace of remorse his brother may feel when the news of his death reached his ears.

That he did care.


	2. October 1980-December 13th, 1981

When the potion first trickled down his throat, his first thought was, _this isn't so bad_. It burned on its way down, creating an unpleasant pool in his stomach, but it was almost… bland. Nothing.

Then it began to burn everywhere.

His throat felt like it was on fire and the word _water_ escaped from his lips before he even knew what was happening. His stomach felt heavy like lead and he fell to his knees, clutching his abdomen. Images began to flash before his eyes, images that he had vowed never to revisit. Sirius's younger face, scrunched up in anger and disappointment, so much like his mother in some ways and at the same time so different, yelling words, words, final words that he would ever say to Regulus. _The same as them_ , he'd said. _Stupid, blind, selfish bastard who only cared about pureblood supremacy._ Regulus had heard the words before from Sirius's lips, but they were always directed at their mother, who was more used to the verbal violence that her oldest son inflicted on her. To neither's credit, she'd never failed to retaliate in kind…

 _You're not my brother anymore. Never speak to me again._

And then Sirius slammed the door of the house and never came back.

Regulus was aware of his mouth moving, forming words that he could vaguely hear, but he wasn't sure what those words were. Kreacher was still with him, the old, faithful house-elf beside himself with worry, but who was cursed to obey his master's orders even when he himself had no desire to. He held the cup to Regulus's lips and Regulus took another long gulp, his will inside him somewhere forcing him.

The image of his brother morphed into something feminine. The dark hair grew longer, the sharp lines grew softer. The crease between her dark brows formed as she struggled to keep her emotions at bay, but it was a lost battle. Her eyes grew wet with tears. Soft lips trembled. _The Regulus Black I fell in love with would have never done what you've done_ , they said, and all Regulus wanted to do was to run to her arms and beg her for her forgiveness. But she held him at the wandpoint, her hands remarkably steady as though the decision was already made in her mind. _I don't know who you are anymore._

"No more," he croaked, but Kreacher urged him to drink again and now he was too weak to resist. Different faces flashed across his mind: the terrified eyes of a woman when she saw his Death Eater mask amist the burning house, her arms shielding her newborn daughter. The spell came from his wand before he could even discern the spell he'd cast and the woman fell limp. The baby began to cry, a loud, shrill scream that burned through his ears. A round, pudgy face looked up at the silver mask, and there was nothing but fear in her eyes. A man's body contorted at an angle that no human body should, and Regulus had caused it, caused the crack he'd heard in the spine, the utter defeat in the man's face that had gone pale with pain, and somewhere in the back of his mind Regulus knew that he should stop it, knew that the pain was making the old man delirious, but he remembered the pain of punishment, the unforgivable curse cast by the Dark Lord upon his own servant, and told himself to keep going. But that pain could not excuse the sounds he was ignoring as he shut his eyes tightly, blocking out the screams of Muggle women who had the misfortune to survive the attacks as his _colleagues—_ his _friends_ —grunted in animalistic pleasure. Why didn't he stop them—tell them it was wrong—why couldn't he—but his body felt too heavy, too hot, and the thirst growing beyond unbearable—

He could not remember moving to the edge of the island. He only felt water between his fingers, the touch of Inferi cool and reassuring, welcoming him to join them in the water, and Regulus complied, his grip on his wand loosening, his body slowly being encompassed in a cool, comfortable blanket. A moment of sanity returned to him and he knew he was going to die. His last moment. Then the potion kicked in again and his vision darkened under water. His mind was bursting from his skull, threatening to leave him entirely, his reason and logic running away from him. The grip on his arms and legs tightened and his skin felt like it was being electrocuted, forcing his mouth open in a silent scream. There was no light, no warmth, nothing but pain and coldness and more pain and Regulus couldn't tell if this was reality or not. His grandfather had once told him that all wizards go to afterlife after they died, but he wasn't sure if he believed him. He closed his eyes, letting his faculties shut down, one by one. The end.

A ray of light came from above, imperceptible among the dense mass of darkness that enveloped him. The ray grew brighter and brighter until it became large enough to light the entire cave, casting shadows on the dubious forms of the Inferi, penetrating the depths of the lake until every last pebble on the bottom squinted their never-opened eyes. Regulus was fast loosing consciousness, not daring to take one last look at the world, knowing that there was nothing waiting for him in the end, but the white brightness lit the world behind his eyes and warmth began to return to his body—perhaps his grandfather had been right after all.

Then he lost all semblance of thought.

* * *

The discomfort. That was the first sensation.

The cause of the discomfort soon became apparent; his skin was burning.

Not physically burning, Regulus hoped. That would be a terrible life to live in afterlife. He supposed he deserved it, in some ways. He'd never thought that he would have to suffer in afterlife as well, though.

His back was also stiff and his body was supported by a hard surface of some kind. How odd. Afterlife turned out to be a lot more realistic than he thought. Regulus tried to move his fingers, but there was no energy in his body. His head hurt terribly and his throat felt as dry as first-quality parchment. So the divine arbitrator had decided to punish him with eternal thirst as well. What a fate.

"Awake, are you?"

The voice did not sound grand or majestic or even all that strong. Regulus shifted his eyes behind his eyelids, trying to locate the source of the sound. There was faint rustling and moving about from his left side. Then the surface supporting his body gave weight as something pressed down from the left.

"Can you hear me?" the voice said again. Male, Regulus decided. Probably not young, either. He tried to respond, but the only sound he managed to create was a weak breath coming from his mouth.

"That's a yes," the man muttered, and Regulus felt something cool and smooth press against his lower lip. What was it? His lips were soon met with cold liquid and he opened his mouth eagerly, letting the water trickle down his throat and chin and jaw. Soon the pressure was gone and there wasn't any more water. His head fell back against the pillow and his breath was ragged. The sound coming from his throat was stronger now. He concentrated on his eyelids, trying to locate them.

A set of eyes was watching him carefully, eyes lined by age and experience and sadness. Regulus tried to look back at them, but his grasp on his surroundings was hazy. He tried to focus his eyes on the man's face, but it felt too contrived and his eyes began to close on their own accord once again…

The next time he came to it was to the sensation of hotness. His skin was slick with sweat and there was a heavy weight on his body, pressing him down. He opened his eyes wildly and tried to sit up, but his arms were too weak to support him. He leaned against the head of the bed, his hands numb against the bedsheets.

An old man was in front of the fireplace tending to the fire. Regulus remembered a question, some sort of a question that he'd heard in his sleep, but he couldn't remember what. The old man turned around and looked at him.

"Who are you?" the voice came out barely a whisper, and his throat scratched painfully. Regulus tried to swallow, but there was no moisture in his mouth. The man advanced toward him and his grip on the bedsheets tightened. But the man didn't do anything besides pouring water from a jug into a cup and handing it silently to Regulus, who took it warily. His arms were shaking. Wordlessly, he took a cautious sip. It was refreshing. He downed the remainder in one gulp. The old man took the cup from his hands and refilled it. Regulus didn't take it this time.

"Who are you?" he asked again. This certainly did not feel like afterlife.

"I could ask you the same question," the man asked. His voice wasn't gravelly, but it was not smooth, either.

"How did you find me?" If the man had found him in the cave it could only mean that he was a wizard. But the man did not look magical; in fact, as far from it as any Muggle could be. So how was it possible that—

"You were washed up on the shore." The man pointed at a direction that Regulus didn't understand. "I was going up to get my boat ready."

Regulus stared at him, uncomprehending. "The shore?" he repeated dumbly.

"Aye," the man said. "Not from the area then, are you?" It didn't seem like he was expecting an answer.

"Where am I?" Regulus asked. The man told him. Regulus shook his head.

"Was there anyone else?" Regulus asked. "Anyone around? I—"

"It was four in the morning, lad," the man said. "There wasn't anyone around." Regulus slumped back on his pillow, all the frantic energy leaving him.

"I'm alive, then," he murmured. His mind was in jumbles.

The man's eyes narrowed. "Were you expecting otherwise?" he asked. Regulus didn't answer. The man watched him carefully.

"Listen, lad," he said. "What's your name?"

Regulus looked back at him. The man couldn't be over seventy, he surmised, but his hair was completely gray and his eyes were drooping slightly. The lips had thinned due to the years and his weathered face showed prominent cheeks. Regulus doubted that the man was a servant of Voldemort. But he didn't know anything right now, and he couldn't afford to be careless now.

"Alex," he said the first name that came to his mind. "Alex… Watson." He couldn't tell if the man believed him or not.

"Well then, Mr. Watson," he said. "Would you mind telling me what you were doing in the middle of the sea in the dead of night?"

Regulus ransacked his mind for an answer. A believable, reasonable, bloody understandable reason as to how he ended up in the sea.

"I don't know," he said honestly.

* * *

That particular autumn passed quickly. Regulus spent a better part of a month falling asleep, waking up briefly to eat or drink before falling asleep again, and did not actually venture outside the house until November, when he had gained enough strength to walk around by himself. The old man said something about therapy, but Regulus would hear none of it, knowing that it would put more burden on the old man. Instead he went out for long walks on the beach and tried swimming a couple of times but the wind was icy and he was thinner than he had ever been.

The old man's name was Peter Gray. He was sixty, he said, and was a veteran of World War Two. Now he resided in the little village where he grew up, and led his boat out into the sea every dawn with a couple of other fishermen. He did not say anything about his family or children, but Regulus saw pictures on the mantelpiece in the livingroom, pictures of a family and children who resembled their father. But he didn't ask and Peter didn't say.

In December Peter managed to drag Regulus to the nearest town to see a doctor about his right hand. Regulus had resisted, knowing that whatever technology the doctor could impress him with wouldn't be sufficient to analyze the dark magic performed on the Inferi that injured him. His hand was intact, the doctors decided. The muscles were in place—mostly—and might even grow back. He might not have feeling in certain spots, but the loss, he was told, could have been bigger and he should consider himself lucky. As to the cause of the injury the doctor couldn't tell and Regulus didn't offer information. Peter suggested getting a treatment for the hand and Regulus declined, instead asking the doctor about exercises he could do by himself. The doctor seemed rather moved at the familial display of consideration for one another (for that was the impression that Peter and Regulus had silently agreed upon to make, Regulus having, for one thing, no legal document as proof of his existence) and gave him a long list of things that he could try at home.

By February Regulus was strong enough (and less useless, Peter commented, than he had been) to help the old man with his livelihood, waking up at the crack of dawn every morning to start the engine of the fishing boat with a few other people. He was the youngest in the group. He had gathered, from bits and pieces of information he heard from the villagers, that Peter once had a wife and two children, both of whom had left the village to pursue more exciting careers. The wife died of an illness soon after and the children rarely came to visit. Still Peter hadn't said anything and Regulus didn't ask.

The water was still quite cold in March, but Regulus learned that swimming helped dispel the cold from his body. He was still thin and, even though his torso had a wiry-sort of look from helping Peter, he was still weak. His right hand now responded to his command, but he had yet to pick up an object with it under a minute. Best to forge on, then.

Summer came and passed quickly. Several visitors who had come to enjoy the attractions of an unknown seaside regarded Regulus with curious eyes as the young man walked past by them, dressed shabbily in Peter's son's old clothes. Regulus paid them no attention, focusing on his goal. He didn't want to interact with people, didn't want to intermingle as he had to previously, did not want them to see the dark emptiness that he himself saw every morning when he looked into the mirror. Numbness had overcome pain but shame remained.

He could move as he used to in September—exactly as he used to, that was, save for his right hand, which was still stubbornly refusing to heal as quickly as the rest of his body. He was aware that he couldn't stay in the village for much longer, couldn't impose himself on the old man much longer, but didn't know how he would proceed from where he was. Peter had offered to pay him for his services and Regulus had refused on the grounds that Peter had been letting Regulus stay with him all these months, but that hadn't stopped the old man from leaving a white envelop on his bed table every fortnight or so. The money, Regulus knew, would be enough to get him out of this village to London, but he was without a wand and had no means to disguise himself and no place to stay without alerting someone that he was, in fact, alive.

And the Dark Lord could not know that he was alive. Under any circumstances.

So September ended in indecision, followed by October and November. He'd been living on borrowed time for over a year. December came unceremoniously and Regulus began to wonder if he had lost the resolve to continue.

Peter, on the other hand, had been in a relatively good mood. It was the holidays, he said, and unlike last year, they could make a proper celebration out of it; perhaps even go to the village church to join the annual party. Regulus made a halfhearted joke at this but Peter was undeterred. And it was during one of these evenings that a knock came from the door.

Regulus had been preparing to brew tea as was their evening ritual. Peter looked up from his newspaper (he didn't have the time to read it in the morning) and adjusted his glasses.

"I'll get it," he said. Regulus nodded.

Footsteps padded down the hallway to the door and Regulus heard a few words of exchange. The door shut and two pairs of footsteps carried themselves to the livingroom. Peter soon entered the kitchen.

"A lad's motorbike ran out of fuel," Peter said without preamble. "I think he should stay for a while. Could you make tea for one more person?"

"Sure," Regulus said, and Peter patted him on his shoulder.

"I'm going to check the back yard." Regulus shook his head. There had been a suspicious increase in the number of oddities that appeared on Peter's backyard—a flower, sometimes, or a book of poetry. He'd even seen a pan of freshly baked scones. Peter had given Regulus sly looks whenever they found the gifts but Regulus didn't want to receive them. He couldn't be ungracious about them, he knew, but they all felt misdelivered. Such attention should be bestowed upon people amongst the living, not the dead...

Having poured warm water into the teapot, Regulus placed the cups on the tray and brought them out to the livingroom to meet the guest. When he stepped on the doorway he heard rather than saw someone start in surprise.

"Bloody hell!"

* * *

Regulus stood on the doorway, holding the tray with a tea set. Transfixed.

The man in front of him stood up. Who was that? The shaggy, long hair, the leather jacket, the faint smell of gasoline. They all somehow felt familiar. His chiseled, aristocratic face. Two gray eyes that he had to face every day in the mirror, under black eyebrows that were now widened and rounded in surprise.

Something in his heart sank. And then lifted. Could it be?

Peter had meanwhile come back from his back yard. "Alex, no need to worry—apparently Suzie left another bottle at the back door—hoping for another glimpse, no doubt—" he chuckled, then looked up between them. "Is there something wrong?"

Sirius was, as always, the first to speak. "You," he said, pointing at Regulus. Regulus didn't know what to do, what to say. He stood there, eyes wide—in what, terror? Fear? He didn't know—and stayed, lips opening, closing, opening again ever so slightly.

"You," Sirius's voice was much weaker this time. Regulus was finally able to move.

"Hello, Sirius," he said, knowing the words were inadequate, knowing full well that there was much they had left unsaid, that a simple greeting such as this could only be cruel. But what else could he say? "Long time no s—"

His words were knocked out of his mouth as Sirius strode across the room in the typical bold Sirius way and landed a punch on his jaw. Regulus staggered back, the tray falling from his hands and clattering to the floor. The cups shattered. Peter shouted something, something about why the strange man was hitting him, what was happening, and Regulus was aware of this, aware of this all, in the dim background of his mind, but what stood in front of him was Sirius, who had meanwhile knocked him to the ground and was now pummeling him with all he seemed to have. He straddled Regulus's chest, his left hand lifting Regulus by his collar. Blow after blow on his nose, his cheeks. Pain, Regulus registered slowly. Wasn't this pain?

"Say something, you stupid git!" Sirius yelled. Regulus grabbed onto his wrists.

"I would if I could safely open my mouth for two seconds," Regulus said dryly. Why was his tone so dry? Why wasn't he worked up like Sirius?

Sirius let out a growl of frustration. "You. Only you would say something like that right now," he said, raising his fist again. Thankfully—or was it a thankful occasion?—Peter intervened.

"Stop it," he snapped, pulling Sirius off of him. Regulus sat up slowly, aware of something warm trickling down his face. Tears? No. It was blood. "I don't know who you are, but this is no way to treat—"

"He's my brother!" Sirius was still yelling at him. "HE'S MY DAMNED YOUNGER BROTHER!"

* * *

Peter decided that it would be most prudent to leave them alone after this short revelation. He wordlessly handed Regulus and Sirius a pack of frozen peas and carrots—Sirius's fist, it seemed, was in only a slightly better state than Regulus's nose—and, muttering vaguely about picking some strawberries from the garden, left. Regulus knew that they hadn't planted strawberries and that strawberries never bore fruit in December, but decided not to mention this. He silently thanked Peter who wordlessly patted Regulus on the shoulder on his way out. Somehow this reassured him more than anything else.

Sirius, meanwhile, had discreetly _reparo'ed_ the tea set and was trying to find the best place to put it.

"He'll notice, you know," Regulus said. "No matter what you do."

"Shut up or your nose will stay that way forever." Regulus checked the nearby window. His nose, aside from being bloody, was also crooked at an odd angle. He decided not to argue further.

"Damn it," Sirius swore.

"I'll put it in the top cabinet," Regulus said tiredly. "He won't notice until much later."

Sirius turned around. "So you know your way around here, huh?" his voice was layered with irritation and boiling emotion that was barely hidden beneath the surface. Regulus merely stared back into his eyes silently. Sirius swore again.

"So," Sirius said, sitting down across from him.

"So."

"I would ask you if you really are Regulus, but it's downright impossible to find someone as annoying as you, so I'll skip the questioning."

"Duly appreciated." Sirius grit his teeth. Regulus looked away. He didn't want to sound this way. But he couldn't figure out another way he could talk to his brother. Was there any way that Regulus could convey to him that he was—

What? That he hated that Sirius left him? That he was remorseful for his decisions? What use was it telling him those things? And looking at his older brother, lively and strong and energetic as ever, his fingers constantly fidgeting in uneasy restlessness, Regulus couldn't help but give into the temptation of acting out his previous role as a smartass younger brother who could get a rise out of his older brother like nobody else. Then maybe nothing would have changed—maybe, he wouldn't feel as horrible as he did.

"So explain," Sirius spat out.

Regulus considered. "Which part? It's been five years since we've talked at all."

"You're supposed to be dead," Sirius pointed at him with a shaky finger. " _You're supposed to be dead._ "

"Yes, well, I suspect that in your mind I was supposed to have died five years ago," Regulus snapped, stung by the accusation in Sirius's voice. "Sorry to be of such an inconvenience."

"You—" Sirius's face began to gain its particular shade of red that Regulus was unfortunately far too familiar with. He'd seen it often during one of the verbal matches between his mother and brother. "Don't make me out as the villain, you've always done this, act as though I'm the one who's done something wrong—"

"Like you were any different?" Hostility rose up in him, age-old and repressed. "Always blaming Mother for every misfortune that _happened_ to cross your way, denouncing your family after having done nothing, _nothing_ , Sirius, for any of us—just exactly what did you expect?"

" _Having done nothing_? You talk as if I _owed_ my parents something. All they've done was to punish me when they couldn't understand me and punish me some more when they could. I owe them nothing. Not one fucking bloody thing." Sirius hissed and Regulus cringed inwardly at the venom in his voice. But the venom, instead of making him cower, made him bolder, blinder. More aggravated than he had been in years.

"You bloody hypocrite," he bit out. "All you've done since I can remember was to tell Mother what a horrible person she was, leaving _me_ to clean up _your_ mess. _They_ didn't mark you as the bad son, Sirius, _you_ did when you gave up on them. When you chose your own _family_ for your convenience and left all of us to pick up the pieces. So stop being such an entitled bastard—"

"What did you just call me?" Sirius's voice was quiet, far too quiet.

"I called you an entitled bastard!" Regulus yelled. "You think I'm wrong? So you didn't like our parents. Hell, _I_ didn't like our parents. Do you think I was happy whenever Mother was in one of her episodes? Or whenever Father came home late smelling of some other women? But I didn't leave them just because I didn't like what I saw. But no, the great Sirius Black couldn't stand the fact that you had to suffer a little because our parents were less than perfect. Oh, I'm sorry," Regulus sneered. "My parents. I forgot that we aren't your family any longer. You've made that perfectly clear."

Sirius's face was now positively purple. "You're the one to talk," he seethed. "Mother never yelled at you whenever you misbehaved. Mother never called you a mistake and she never threatened to kill you if you stepped a toe out of line—"

Regulus's answering laugh was almost hysterical. "You think I was left alone? Who do you think always got the blame for not looking after his older brother, Sirius? Do you think that Mother blamed _herself_? And you had your friends, your family. I didn't even have a proper brother." His voice cracked at the last word and Regulus looked away, upset. He had no intention of letting his brother see that it hurt. It hurt when Sirius left. But Sirius didn't need to know that. He probably gloated his great escape to his friends.

Sirius just stared at him, his eyes still fiery from the argument but his lips not as vicious as they had been, as though he was caught in an internal argument that he couldn't figure out.

"You became a Death Eater," he said at last with a note of finality.

"Brilliant deduction," Regulus shot back. Sirius's eyes narrowed.

"Don't make this harder than it has to be, Reg," he said.

Regulus glared back. "And what, may I ask, is _this_?"

"I don't bloody know!" Sirius yelled. "I just imagined that, if I ever got to talk to you again, we wouldn't start fighting. Again."

"Really?" Regulus crossed his arms in front of him. "I never imagined it any other way."

Their eyes met. Then something broke loose—the tension in the room, perhaps, or the grudging worry they had for each other the last few years. Regulus had no way of knowing if his brother was alive. The last time he'd checked, Voldemort was still at large, his brother was as stupid and reckless as ever, risking his neck for the Order, and neither side showed any signs of stopping. Now his brother was here, flesh and blood, in front of him. He began to laugh, a silent cough, his lips pulling themselves back unwillingly. A stream of air gushed from his mouth and he hacked into his chest.

"Don't laugh!" Sirius shouted, and that made the situation feel even more ridiculous. A reluctant smile appeared on his face. "Alright, I get why you're laughing but seriously—" at the hackneyed pun Regulus began to double over and even Sirius seemed unable to resist the charm of the pun on his own name. He let out a bark-like laugh and soon the two crouched over on the sofa, laughing. Regulus's stomach hurt.

Gradually, however, the laugher subsided. Regulus looked around, much more sobered. He sighed.

"Give me your wand," he muttered, holding his hand out to Sirius. Sirius looked up at him, befuddled.

"What?"

"Your wand," Regulus said. "I realize how fond you are of broken noses, but I'm not."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "You think I can't perform a simple healing spell?" he asked, drawing his wand out. He tapped Regulus's nose and Regulus felt the familiar cold and hot sensation. He twitched his nose reflexively. All seemed to be in order.

"Thanks," he said, making a move to go out.

"Oi, where do you think you're going?" Sirius asked.

"To tell Peter that it's safe to come in," Regulus said drily. "He'll be relieved to know that his living room is still intact."

Peter took the news with his typical wooden sort of a grace and invited Sirius to dinner. Regulus went about the kitchen, preparing something simple—onion soup, he decided, would be warm and suitable. It still felt odd sometimes to hold a knife in his hand for the purpose of cooking, but he was almost used to it; besides, Peter seemed rather pleased when Regulus learned how to cook. Sirius watched with a raised eyebrow from the table as he chatted avidly with Peter about their childhood.

"So, Sirius," Peter said, examining the older brother with a considerable amount of curiosity. The old man had been used to seeing Regulus as a thin, weak sort of a young man and was surprised to find the older brother so energetic and strapping. "That is your real name, isn't it?"

"Unfortunately," Sirius said good-naturedly. "My parents had a really bad sense when it came to names."

"Sirius Black," Peter mused. "Funny, that is. Your brother told me that his name was Alex Watson."

Sirius gave Regulus a significant look. Regulus focused his eyes solely on the onions.

"Did he?" Sirius asked airily. "I don't blame him. The poor bugger. He was worse off than I was, you know: Regulus Black."

Regulus's eyes widened. It was fine for Sirius to go around and announce his presence everywhere, but Regulus couldn't afford to be discovered. He tried to give Sirius some sort of a signal to stop talking, but it seemed that Sirius, too, was steadfastly ignoring him.

"Regulus, eh?" Peter now gave Regulus a look and Regulus tried to smile in a trustworthy way, certain that he had failed.

"I'm sorry, Peter," he said. "I didn't know where I was, and I wasn't sure if, well—"

Peter's eyebrows rose. "If you could trust me?" he asked casually, but Regulus thought there was a slight injury in his voice.

"No," he lied. "If I was safe where I was. I'm sorry that I lied to you." Peter seemed to mull this over. Then, a teasing glint appeared in his eyes.

"Regulus," he said. That's one fancy name. Who's Alex Watson, then?"

"No one," Regulus quickly said. Simultaneously, Sirius said, "His girlfriend." The grin on his face told Regulus that Sirius was indeed enjoying this very much.

"Girlfriend?" Peter's lips quirked upward. Regulus wanted to crawl into the fireplace and burn with the log. "Wouldn't your girlfriend be worried that you've been gone for so long?"

"She's an ex-girlfriend," Regulus muttered, stirring the soup in the pot. He felt the sudden urge not to give Sirius any soup.

"And her surname isn't Watson, it's Wilson," Sirius said, ignoring him. "Watson was a dunderhead who was in—in the same year as us. When we were at—er—"

"Secondary school," Regulus quickly filled in for him. Sirius had barely managed to catch himself at 'Watson' who had been, Regulus was quite sure, a Hufflepuff. "We all went to the same school together."

"Really?" Peter began to set the table and Sirius got up, trying to help. "So you're going to a university, then?" he asked Sirius. Sirius looked rather lost.

"Actually, I'm sort of working," he said, scratching his head. "In training, I suppose you could say. It's sort of a—a research facility." His face cleared. "That's it. A research facility for, erm, toys."

"Toys?" Peter and Regulus simultaneously. Peter's eyebrows rose again.

"You seem surprised," he said to Regulus—rather admonishingly, it seemed. Regulus retrieved several bowls from the cupboards.

"We've been out of contact," Regulus hastily said. "He must have gotten his job recently."

"Yes!" Sirius sounded a bit too eager with the story, but Regulus had no way of telling him this. "That's it. Exactly. Spiffingly so." Peter gave Regulus an odd look and Regulus shrugged, saying silently: _he's always that way_. For all his time spent in Muggle Studies, Sirius seemed to have forgotten most of his lessons.

The rest of the dinner went slightly more smoothly. Peter asked Sirius a thousand questions about his job, his friends, and what Regulus was like as a child. Both of them seemed intent on revealing as many embarrassing details about Regulus's life as possible and Regulus endured the affair with a not-so-amused smile on his face. When they'd eaten to their satisfaction, Regulus cleared the table and began to wash the dishes. Sirius loomed nearby, looking at him curiously.

"You can help, you know," Regulus said snappily. Sirius shrugged, lounging back in his chair.

"Nah," he said. "I do enough cleaning on my own."

"Flat in London?" Regulus quoted from the dinner conversation. He never knew that Sirius had been living by himself...

"Yup," he said. They weren't able to say anything more, however, because Peter came in at that moment with a thick blanket in his hand.

"Sirius," he said. "I've cleared Elizabeth's room a bit—my daughter. It hasn't been used in a while, so you might find it a little dusty."

"That's more than perfect," Sirius said, standing up. He took the blanket from Peter's arms. "Thank you, Peter."

Peter shrugged. "It's late—I'm going to sleep. Don't forget to turn off all the lights before you go to bed." The last sentence was directed at Regulus, who rolled his eyes.

"I know," he said. "Good night." Peter patted both brothers on the shoulders before leaving. Regulus soon finished washing the dishes and, re-checking that both the front and back doors were securely locked, began to climb up the stairs to his bedroom. Sirius silently followed.

"Is this my room?" Sirius asked, pointing at the room opposite from Regulus's.

"Yes," Regulus said. He looked around. "But come in here for a second."

Sirius's brows furrowed, but he said, "Alright." Regulus shut the door behind them and locked the door for a good measure.

"We need to talk," Regulus said urgently. The questions have been burning in his mind since he'd calmed down enough to think properly, but they didn't have a chance to talk all evening. He sat down on the bed and Sirius leaned against the desk, crossing his arms.

"What?"

"The Dark Lord, Voldemort," Regulus blurted out, trying to find the best way to begin. "You made it sound like he's been gone for a while." Sirius's eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"Yeah," he said. "You mean you didn't know?"

"I've been out of touch with the world since I disappeared. You might have noticed—this is a rather isolated village." Muggle village, Regulus added, and the daily newspaper Peter read every morning was unenlightening, at best.

"Well, he's been gone since Halloween," Sirius answered with an odd smile. "Funny that you wouldn't know that. Every Death Eater—" he stopped, looking both guilty and wary. Regulus smiled humorlessly.

"They've been tried, I assume," Regulus said. Sirius snorted.

"All that we could think of, anyway," he said. "Half of them have been pardoned, you know. Pleaded innocent on grounds of being imperiused, if you can believe it."

"The ones who were imperiused wouldn't have been branded with a Dark Mark," Regulus said matter-of-factly. "The Dark Lord marked only those whom he intended to use as servants for a lifetime.

"Lovely testimony, that," Sirius said, rolling his eyes. Regulus wanted to tell him that this was no light matter—that, sooner or later, Regulus would also have to stand in court and defend his actions. But this was obviously not the time for that and—he had something to do.

"Voldemort isn't dead," Regulus said.

Sirius frowned. "Of course he is. He died at the Battle of Lestrange Manor."

"How did he die?" Regulus asked.

"Burned to the ground."

"Are you certain?"

"Even Dumbledore agrees—Voldemort died. He did that funny thing with his wand, too. You know, checking for residuals of life, and stuff." Sirius might have been good with simplifying things, but he wasn't good with dealing with complicated things by themselves, either. Regulus resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"Voldemort isn't dead," he repeated. "And I have proof."

Sirius regarded him. "How do you know?" he asked.

"I'll be brief. He created Horcruxes. Several of them, in fact. In essence, he split his soul and contained pieces of them in object for safekeeping until further time came when he would need to regenerate." Regulus paused. "And, if you're correct, such time would be now."

Sirius just stared at his face. Regulus frowned.

"Come now, I know you avoid reading about Dark Arts, but even you must realize that, theoretically speaking, Horcruxes aren't impossible." This seemed to shake Sirius out of his reverie.

"Not impossible, I suppose, but—" he looked at Regulus, disbelieving. "He couldn't have. He possibly couldn't have."

"He has and he will try to come back." Regulus stated simply. Sirius seemed struck by the confidence in his tone.

"You said you had proof," he said finally.

"Well, to be exact, I don't have proof. Kreacher does."

"I don't follow."

Regulus hesitated. "Voldemort hid one Horcrux in a cave. I didn't know it at a time, but he requested a house-elf for that purpose and I volunteered Kreacher. I asked Kreacher to take me with him back to the cave so that I could see it for myself. Kreacher has the Horcrux now."

Sirius regarded him silently for a while. "Is that what happened to you?" he asked.

Regulus twitched. "What?" he asked.

"Is that what happened?" Sirius repeated. "Before you disappeared, I mean. You went on some rogue mission to retrieve the Horcrux against the Dark Lord?"

The twitch became more prominent now. Regulus didn't like the question. "So what?" he asked.

Sirius was looking him in a way that he never had before and Regulus wished that they were back to having a shouting match. That would be much simpler. "They said you'd sort of… gotten in over your head. That you got scared of what he was about to do and ran away."

"Well," Regulus said drily. "I did run away. And, if I'm being honest, learning about Horcurxes wasn't exactly a picnic, either."

"But—" Sirius frowned. "Reg, does anyone else know about this?"

Regulus shook his head. "No. No. I checked every possible leak. No one knows. I sent Dumbledore bits of my research—not sure if he received them, though."

Sirius looked at him with his eyes wide. "Reg," he said. "What are you going to do?"

Regulus frowned at his brother. "I thought the answer would have been obvious, with you being the brave Gryffindor," he said. "We're going to find the Horcruxes and destroy them all, of course." Regulus knew about the prophecy—the Chosen One, as it was whispered amongst the higher levels of Death Eaters who had heard of Snape's report. Perhaps he ought to let the nature take its course—let fate do its work. But if a couple lives, however few, could be saved by his actions, then perhaps fate had better take a different course.

Sirius, meanwhile, was looking at Regulus with a torn expression. It was as if he didn't know whether to call Regulus bonkers or a genius.

"Know how to do it?" Sirius asked.

"Nope."

"Know where they are?"

"Nope."

"Know _what_ they look like?"

Regulus gave his older brother a look. "Only if." He sighed at his lap. "I have a faint idea, but it's just a hunch, and we would need to do a considerable amount of investigation."

Sirius shrugged. "Alright," he said. "Just one question."

Regulus rubbed his eyes tiredly. "What?"

"What changed?"

Regulus stilled in his position, his eyes wary. He'd been expecting the question since dinner, but he still didn't have any satisfying explanations for him. Quite possibly because he didn't know himself exactly what it was that he wanted. What changed? Nothing, really; the world around him was the same as ever. Perhaps it was the sight of her tears that had undone the first knot, followed by many series of events including Kreacher that all unraveled a tight Gordion knot of his heart that Regulus had decided to stow away. What changed? But what made him decide that he couldn't take it longer? Regulus wasn't ready to ask himself the question.

"Go to sleep, Sirius," Regulus said, letting his back hit the mattress. "I'm tired and we'll have a long day tomorrow."


	3. December 14th, 1981-January 1st, 1982

A/N: Thank you to all those who'd read/reviewed/followed... oh, you know the drill.

* * *

The cold air was like icicles piercing through his face and Regulus instinctively buried his face into the collar of his jacket, trying to preserve some feeling left in his skin. Next to him Sirius was looking out at the dawn sea, his eyes wide. Sirius had insisted, with his typical bouncy enthusiasm, that he be allowed to accompany them on the fishing boat, and Peter had been in a good enough mood to agree. Regulus, on the other hand, was still unsure about letting Sirius see in all the mundane and gory details of his past year.

"So this is how they fish," Sirius said once they were in the safety of not being overheard. Peter had dropped them off unceremoniously by his house, telling them to have some breakfast. Sirius protested, but Regulus simply dragged his brother inside.

"Did you know," Sirius continued as they dragged their frozen bodies into the kitchen, "that wizards actually buy food from Muggles? Surprising, I know, but it's true. We can't conjure food magically, and there are very few farms devoted to growing vegetables and whatnot. So the stuff sold in our market actually comes mostly from Muggle farms and fisheries—"

"Sirius," Regulus said tiredly, "I'd been in charge of the family accounting since I turned seventeen. It would be hard for me _not_ to know. Stop with your babble already."

Sirius's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, you were in charge of accounting?" he asked. Regulus cursed silently into the teapot.

"I asked Father if I could begin to get more involved in family matters," he lied smoothly. "So the transition would be easier. Father wasn't getting any younger and Mother was often tired." Sirius snorted, shaking his head at him half-amused, half-exasperated, and Regulus swallowed a small sigh of relief. Sirius bought the reasoning easily, as Regulus thought he would.

"Stuck-up git," Sirius muttered, but there wasn't as much malice in his voice as there had been yesterday. Regulus ignored his remark and went on making tea and a small breakfast.

"So what's the plan?" Sirius asked, munching on his third muffin. Regulus slowly put down his teacup, considering. The thought had been with him all morning, but he didn't want to show it in front of Peter.

"Well, we first get Peter something to eat," Regulus said matter-of-factly. Sirius gave him a look.

"That's not what I was asking, you git."

"We leave today," Regulus said. "As soon as we can. I can't afford to waste any more time." Sirius didn't say anything, but raised his eyebrow.

"What?" Regulus asked impatiently.

"Nothing," Sirius said. "The old man seemed quite keen on spending the holiday with you, that's all."

Regulus felt another stab of guilt straight to his heart. He knew this, knew that Peter had wanted to celebrate a holiday with anyone since the day his children left. And Regulus owed the old man some common decency, if not genuine affection and gratitude. But the task that was left to him—he could not put it off on the grounds of common decency. Could he?

"Sirius," Regulus said, his voice tight. "Every day, more and more people believe that the world will never see of Lord Voldemort again. Every day, people become more and more convinced that they're safe. And every day is just another day that Voldemort might have a chance to come back. It might be easier for you to forget since the imminent danger is gone, but I can't treat this like some chore that I can put off indefinitely. We have to act and we have to act now."

Sirius rolled his eyes at him. "You're obsessed," he said. "I've seen people who were obsessed, Reg. It's not healthy."

Regulus felt a flame of irritation alight again in his stomach. Merlin, could they _never_ have a conversation that didn't involve irritation or shouting? "So what if I'm a little focused?" Regulus shot back. "This is a matter of life or death, Sirius. Do you want to see another wizarding war?"

"No," Sirius said, his voice impossibly reasonable. "But I don't want to see yet another person swallowed up by a goal that would destroy them."

Regulus decided to ignore the last sentence. If only Sirius knew… "Don't you agree that Voldemort must be stopped?" he asked instead. Sirius grabbed his fifth muffin.

"Of course I do," Sirius said. "But on our own time."

Regulus put down his fork agitatedly. "I—" he began.

"'Sides," Sirius interrupted calmly, taking a large bit. "I want to stay and see what they do for celebration around here. And you can't really do anything unless I'm with you, can you?" Regulus stared at him in disbelief, but Sirius ignored his outraged glare.

"After all," he merely said, "you're without a wand."

The final sentence drove the point home and that was how Regulus Arcturus Black, age twenty-one, the ninety-something-th heir of the Black family, ended up in the local church, the only building in the village large enough to hold more than fifty people at a time. Christmas lights were still hanging from the ceilings despite the fact that it was already New Year's Eve and people where chatting avidly, animatedly, most of all his own brother, who seemed right at home in the middle of a crowd of people whom he'd never met. Regulus wondered again if he didn't have any plans with his friends—after all, Potter would hold an end-of-the-year party, wouldn't he? Especially if everyone thought that Voldemort was gone…

Peter came up to him, so silently that even Regulus jumped in surprise when the older man laid a hand on his shoulder. "Quite a ladies' man, your brother," he said, chuckling. Regulus scowled.

"I'll not be responsible for any broken hearts," he said. "Honestly, I have no idea what people see in that prat."

"Don't you?" Peter's eyes shined playfully, making him look years younger. Regulus didn't answer. Yes, he knew what people saw in Sirius: his vivacity, his energy, his humor, his openness, his willingness to put others before him for entertainment. All the qualities that the younger brother lacked and the qualities whose absence he was sorely aware of within himself. The qualities that had made him envious of his brother at a younger age. How he used to wish that he could be like Sirius, carefree, unthinkingly clever, indifferent to other people's reactions and emotions. Instead Regulus had to force himself to extend his greetings to others, force himself to block out unnecessary observations about other people, force himself to not feel at certain points so that he could endure every day the necessity of social interaction. Why had it always been so difficult?

"Thank you again for your present," he said instead, looking down. The suit fitted him a bit loosely on the shoulders, but both Sirius and Peter agreed that such would be for the best; Regulus was far too thin in their opinions and needed a bit of fattening up. The dark gray fabric stretched across his chest and back like an elegant note from a piece of music. The dark tie chafed slightly against his neck, but Regulus remembered that ties were rarely comfortable. Peter had dragged the unsuspecting Regulus (aided by his newfound ally, the older brother) to the nearest tailor shop and more or less extorted his measurements from the young man. Regulus didn't know how to react; he knew that Peter wasn't poor, but he wasn't exactly the model of affluence, either. So he did what Alex would have done: smile and receive gratefully.

Peter shrugged. "You needed a decent set of clothing, anyhow," he said. Regulus didn't answer. The guilt gnawed at his chest, the monster tiny but powerful, a different kind of guilt from what he had been feeling previously. He'd always known that he would, one day, have to leave. But he hadn't known when. He hadn't counted on Sirius to appear out of the blue and provide a way to set his plans in motion so suddenly. He'd imagined that the departure would be gradual, natural. He hadn't expected to have to bring up the subject.

"Peter—" Regulus began, but Peter made a motion. Regulus shut his mouth.

"I know what you're going to say," Peter said. Regulus looked at him strangely. Peter chuckled humorlessly.

"I've seen that face before, you know," he said. "The one you've been wearing since your brother arrived. Jacob and Elizabeth had the same look before they told me that they had to go." Regulus felt something rise in his throat but swallowed it down forcefully. It seemed that they were going to have this conversation. Now. But he wasn't ready. He would never be ready.

"Peter," he said slowly. "I—I'm not what you think I am."

Peter looked at him. "And what do I think you are?" he asked.

Regulus looked around helplessly. Sirius was still chatting with one of the local girls who had found out that the older brother was much more amiable than the younger brother and just as handsome. The noise around them grew and grew until it grew so quiet that their conversation appeared to be the only one taking place. He breathed in deeply. It didn't help.

"You said that sometimes the air around the village grew cold for no reason at all. That for days people would walk around with a depressed gloom. That sometimes the sea would be violent, so violent, that you had to cancel your plans for the day. What if—what if I told you that I was responsible for those things? Responsible for parts of it?" Regulus could not keep the dread out of his voice and he looked at Peter desperately, failing, for the first time, to hide his unquenchable need for reassurance, reassurance that everything was going to be all right, that everything was put behind them, all of it…

Peter was strangely silent.

"Peter?" Regulus asked, feeling the alarm creep into his voice. Peter looked back at him, his eyes unreadable.

"There are two types of people who wash up on the shore," he said. Regulus felt his brows knit together.

"One," Peter went on, disregarding Regulus' confusion, "are those who didn't expect it to happen. Reckless swimmers, most of them. Got a bit overconfident, thought they could make it."

Regulus didn't respond.

"The other type," Peter went on softly, "are those who never expected to come back alive in the first place." Regulus felt his expectant gaze on his face but still didn't respond. He felt like stone statue, stillness etched into eternity. He couldn't move and wished he could stay that way forever. So Peter had known, all the while…

"I didn't want to say anything," Peter kept on going, and a part of Regulus wanted to shout, tell him to stop, stop with the truthful nonsense, but he couldn't. "You didn't look ready to talk about it."

"There's nothing to talk about." His voice was hoarse.

Peter regarded him silently. "You can't blame yourself for everything that happened, Alex," he said. He still called him Alex, despite knowing that it was a lie. One of many lies that were and were not revealed.

Regulus shook his head. "You don't understand—you don't know everything."

"Maybe I don't," Peter conceded. "But I had also seen wars—perhaps different wars from what you've experienced. I've seen faces of men who'd given up, who couldn't bear the fact that they'd done what they'd done. It's a hellish way to live. And there's so much time left in you. You're so young. You can't keep going this way."

Regulus looked at his boots. Worn, scuffed boots that Peter had gotten him the first month he arrived.

"I'll come back to visit," Regulus said. "I can't promise when. I have—" he cleared his throat. "Unsettled business to settle. But when everything is over—I'll come to visit. I promise."

Regulus couldn't tell if Peter believed him or not. He just looked at him sadly, his face marred by time, grief, experience. Regulus resisted the urge to come up with some sort of excuse—a plausible reason for why he was behaving the way he was acting. Reason for his rudeness, apparent ingratitude. What could he do? Nothing that would solve the situation.

"I'm sorry," he said finally. "But I have to go."

* * *

"I am _not_ getting on that contraption. Ever again."

Sirius shrugged. "Suit yourself. It's the only way I travel these days, anyhow."

Regulus gritted his teeth. "I understand your morbid fascination with all things loud and pungent, but this—" he made a wild gesture at the said contraption— "is awful. Beyond awful. It's—"

"Terrifying? You seemed to grasp my coat pretty tightly back there." Sirius fished around in the fifth jacket pocket, apparently still in search for his keys. "Don't tell me that the precious Slytherin Seeker is afraid of _heights_."

"I won't dignify that with an answer," Regulus said icily.

"I think you just did."

Regulus resisted the urge to growl and stomp his feet on the entryway to his brother's apartment. Sirius was still looking for his keys, the messy git. The said awful contraption called a motorbike was sitting meekly on the curbside where the residents were allowed to park their cars or other vehicles of their choosing—no one, Regulus noted with faint satisfaction, had a bad sense to ride a motorbike other than his older brother. He'd better make sure to apologize to the neighbors for the noise sometime.

He shook his head. What was he thinking? Extending politeness? He was supposed to be dead.

"I don't know why you live on this side of the town, anyway," Regulus said, kicking a small pebble with his boot. "Bad investment, as far as real estate goes."

Sirius raised his eyebrow challengingly. "Have problem with Muggles?"

Regulus gave him a glare. "Yes. I have a problem with Muggles. That's why I've been living as one for the past year. Just get your keys out of your jean pocket already."

Sirius shoved his fingers into the said pocket and looked up at Regulus with amazement. "How did you know they were going to be in there?" he asked. Regulus rolled his eyes. As if he could forget the fact that Sirius always but things in his pants pocket for safekeeping. He'd found an unfortunately large number of trinkets in the said location—including, but not limited to, an owl pellet from the family owl. That had not been the most pleasant of experiences.

"Why can't you just drive, like everybody else?" Regulus couldn't help grumbling as they climbed up the stairs. There was no lift in the building. Of course there wasn't. Sirius didn't know the first thing about good residence buildings, let alone real estate.

Sirius's eyes shone in a strange way. "Flying cars," he said, stroking his chin. "Hmm. Not a half-bad idea, actually."

Regulus let out an exaggerated sigh. "Forget it," he said.

"I mean, the mechanics can't be _that_ different, all you have to do is temper with the engine a little bit—"

"I said forget it." The finally arrived on their floor. Regulus tried to hold back the huffs of breath that escaped from his lungs without volition. He didn't want Sirius to see that he was still, as far as his body was concerned, still weak. Sirius, on the other hand, didn't even break a sweat.

"Here we are," he said. "Room 303. It's just three stories, Reg. You must be really out of shape." Regulus would have retorted in kind, but he was far too out of breath to answer. Sirius, who'd cast him an odd look when he didn't hear any scathing reply back, furrowed his brows in a manner that resembled concern. Regulus dismissed the possibility.

"Oi," Sirius said. "Are you alright?"

"Of course I am." But the answer came out as a pant instead of a snap and Regulus leaned against the wall, feeing the cool scratchiness against his cheek.

"Peter said you'd been swimming," Sirius said, and his voice contained none of its former dare. "I thought that you'd sort of… bounced back."

"It's not my body that's the problem, you prat," Regulus said, exasperated. "It's the magic that's the problem."

Sirius's eyes narrowed. "What magic?" he asked. Regulus waved his hand dismissively.

"Just open the door already," he said. "Your neighbors might be tolerant enough to endure your bike, but I doubt they would be tolerant enough to accept talk of magic."

Sirius grumbled something about his smart mouth and talking far too much but he creaked open the door nonetheless. Regulus followed.

He supposed that he'd been expecting it, in some ways. Sirius had never been the tidiest person in the room. But the flat itself was a disaster.

Wrappers of all kinds were strewn across the floor, covering the entire surface like clouds that enveloped the sky on a rainy day. There was not a square inch of surface safe to stand on. Shelves were crammed with objects and jars of gooey liquid that Regulus was afraid to even observe. Objects floated near the ceiling, tiny little broomsticks and quidditch equipments engaged in a silent battle that only they themselves seemed to understand. Walls were plastered with posters of wizard and muggle bands, quidditch teams, and Gryffindor banners. Regulus could discern a sofa and a table in the middle of the living room, but all furniture was unfortunately concealed from the view by various articles of clothing. The entire space smelled faintly of rotting coffee.

"Give me your wand," Regulus said immediately, holding out his hand. Sirius, who had been gingerly hanging his coat on the hanger—Regulus was surprised that Sirius even had a sense to get a coat hanger—looked at him.

"What? Why?"

"Your flat," Regulus said. "I've got to clean it. I've got to. This is wrong. Just _wrong_."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "You sound like Evans," he muttered. "Even James has joined in, if you'd believe it."

"Well, as much as I regret to say this, Potter's right on this one. It looks like a hoard of hippogriffs trampled across this place."

"It's occupational hazard!" Sirius protested. "You try working at Zonko's, see how tidy you are in a month."

"Pray tell, what does—" Regulus picked up the first crumpled bit of paper he could find on the floor. "Holly at 14 Abingdon Road have to do with your work at Zonko's?" Then Regulus read the rest of the paper. He crumpled the paper the same way it had been before and slowly placed it back on the floor. Sirius laughed at his expression.

"You look like you've just seen two house elves going at it," he said gleefully. Regulus swallowed distastefully.

"Trust me, I would rather witness _that_ than this—" he made a gesture at the paper on the floor, lost for words. The bag slung on his shoulders containing the few possessions that he'd received from Peter suddenly felt a lot heavier.

"Come on, it's not as if you'd never done it before." Now Sirius was watching him with eyes a bit too bright. Regulus cautiously stepped into the threshold, careful not to step on anything fishy. Based on the note he'd just read, however, Regulus doubted that anything in the apartment was trustworthy.

"I haven't the foggiest notion what you mean," Regulus said curtly. Sirius scoffed.

"Have it your way, then," he said. He plopped himself down on the sofa, sitting on the heap of articles of clothing already piled on it, and Regulus imagined that all the buttons on them were silently wincing. He chose to stand on the doorway even though it felt like he was awkwardly stalling for time.

"What are you doing hovering around there?" Sirius asked, raising his eyebrow again. Regulus crossed his arms in front of him.

"Would rather not," he said. Sirius rolled his eyes and reluctantly took out his wand.

" _Scourgify_ ," he muttered, with a series of other spells that managed to vanish the trash littered around the flat and folded the clothes back into their proper places. There was still a silent game of quidditch going on in the ceiling, but Regulus liked it that way.

"Satisfied?" Sirius asked sourly. Regulus drew out a stool from beneath the kitchen table and sat on it cautiously. The legs didn't give in to his weight.

"Now," Sirius said. "What magic were you talking about?"

* * *

"What magic were you talking about?"

Sirius stared at his brother. He was allowed to do that every once in a while, wasn't he? To be entirely honest he still couldn't believe it: his brother Regulus, alive. It was sheer impossibility.

If he was being logical—and he rarely was, a fact in which he took most pride in—no one had ever discovered Regulus's body. But during those days bodies of people who'd disappeared rarely turned up, if not never. It was considered pitiful, downright foolish to even expect a body. It was a war. People were being incinerated left and right. So no, Sirius had gathered the news of his brother's disappearance and took it as his death. And there were rumors, rumors amongst Death Eaters and Order members alike, that a young Death Eater had defected from the organization after seeing for the first time the very reality of what was happening.

In the back of his mind he knew the impossibility of this idea. Regulus—his stubborn, obstinate, hardy little brother Regulus—was not the type to simply desert a cause. All the more reason better to believe that he was dead than, well, doing harm to the wizarding society as a Death Eater. Or so Sirius had convinced himself, over and over, during the countless nights when he couldn't sleep. The cruelty and coldness of this excuse never failed to stab at his conscience, but he put aside his feelings in the name of the greater good. They were fighting a Dark Wizard, the most dangerous Dark Wizard of all times. Fraternal affections couldn't get in the way.

But Sirius had never been an idealist. That was to say, he wasn't a philosopher who could systematically map out a series of thoughts that would argue why some things were right or some things were wrong. He could never open Levi's _Book of Morals_ and point out to Voldemort all the ways in which he was wrong. Regulus, on the other hand, was the very person who could and would do those things. The difference in their temperaments had always made their arguments both heated and hypocritical; Sirius spoke from what he wanted, needed—that was, to oppose his parents and be different from the rest of the family—and all his talk of Muggle rights and idiocy of pureblood supremacy was—well, not entirely out of spite, but not entirely out of selfless altruism, either. If he'd been born to an unhappy bloodtraitor family, Regulus had once accused him during one of their spats, Sirius would have been a pureblood maniac. He'd hexed his little brother for saying that.

All this eluded Sirius most of the times. He wasn't the reflective kind and wars tended to make people quicker to react than to reflect. Even Remus, who was the most considerate and thinking sort of person Sirius knew, had become hardened due to the war, choosing to attack the opponent first before asking questions. The only logic that ensured survival. And the types like Sirius were better fit for the war than most; energetic, endlessly optimistic, and in love with danger, the thrill of chasing after the unknown. Regulus was none of those things…

No, Sirius decided. He'd never worried about Regulus. Regulus could do well on his own.

But, looking at the figure sitting on a stool in front of him, thinner than Sirius had ever seen him, paler than snow, with a haunted look in his eyes that Sirius was afraid to see, he suppressed a pulse of guilt that coursed through him.

"What magic?" Regulus repeated, and it took Sirius a moment to realize that Regulus was, in fact, using his own question back at him. The bastard.

"That magic you talked about," Sirius said. "You said there wasn't a problem with your body."

"Did I?" Regulus asked. "When?"

Sirius's eyes narrowed. "Don't play innocent with me, Reg," he said warningly. Regulus smiled a thin smile that was too ironic for a simple morning conversation. His bloody younger brother and his bloody cryptic responses. Sirius could never stand them for a long period of time.

"That was not my intent," Regulus said. "It's a bit too late to plead innocent, don't you think?" He made a gesture at his left wrist where Sirius had seen the Dark Mark during the excursion out to the sea on the fishing boat. Sirius scowled. That was another problem with Regulus—he talked far too little when it came to important things and far too much when it came to the most trivial, provoking things.

"Magic," Sirius said stubbornly. "You said magic was making you weak." Regulus looked at something far away—pretending not to hear him, probably. Well, Sirius was going to have none of it. He'd waited enough.

"Regulus," he said. "Whether you like it or not, you need my help to hunt these—Horcruxes, you called them. Fine. I said I'll help you. But I think that merits a bit of explanation."

"Does it?" Regulus murmured, looking down at his right hand. His disfigured right hand. Sirius had noticed it, of course he had—his hands were probably the only thing about Regulus that were at least _bearable_. They couldn't talk, couldn't shout. Wrote the most elegant script that Sirius had ever witnessed. Caught Snitches. Brewed the best tea. Took care of plants the way no one in the family could. Sirius even bet that Regulus would be good at knitting, if he ever gave it a shot. Not that the proud ninety-something-th heir of the Black family ever would.

"Let's start with something small, then," Sirius said. "What happened to your hand?" Regulus looked up.

"What about my hand?"

* * *

"What about my hand?"

The question rang hollow in his ears. Regulus cursed inwardly.

"You haven't used it at all. Even to just open a door you used your left hand." Damn Sirius for being sharper than he pretended to be. Regulus looked at his right hand, turning it slowly on his lap. It didn't shake when he tried to use it now, which was definitely an improvement, and a few days ago he wrote a couple of sentences quite nicely with it before growing too tired. But he would never be aiming with his right hand again. He knew that, and decided not to mourn its loss too greatly. He just never had his own brother ask that question to his face, that's all.

"It's fine," Regulus muttered.

"You'll never catch another Snitch with a hand like that," Sirius said. Regulus looked away, but Sirius being Sirius couldn't tell when to stop.

"You need to go to St. Mungo's," Sirius continued. "Never mind Mummy's old lessons on neat handwriting and table manners—are you really okay with not being able to play Quidditch like you used to?" Why did Sirius have to ask questions like that? Why? Why was he always able to say the exact things on his mind at the wrongest moments like this, throwing him off? First he cleaned the flat—admittedly, Regulus could find some flaws with his method, but he had acquiesced and took the trouble to get rid of the litter across the floor—and now he was asking him about his hand.

"I said it's fine."

"What happened to you, Reg?"

" _I said it's fine_ ," Regulus hissed. "Drop the subject already."

"Fine," Sirius said, crossing his arms in front of him as well. "Do what you want, but let me tell you this: when you faint while on a hunt, I'll have no idea what I can do for you. And if you die, I'll have no idea what to do next. Because you never told me anything."

Regulus mulled this over. He didn't always like it, but Sirius had his finer moments when it came to logical argument. And Sirius was right—hunting Horcruxes and putting an end to Voldemort once and for all came before personal feelings or familial feuds. He sighed. This wasn't going to be pretty.

"So what happened to you?" Sirius asked again.

"I got dragged into a lake."

"You got dragged into a lake."

"Yes, the lake I told you about. Kreacher went with me, seeing as he was the only one who knew its location. Other than the Dark Lord, naturally."

"Naturally."

"And, seeing as it's the Dark Lord, he of course infested the water with Inferi—"

"You got dragged into an Inferi-infested lake."

"Well, I had to drink this potion beforehand, so my wand skills weren't up to par, per se—"

"You had to drink this potion."

"Terrible potion, Drink of Despair, you might have heard of it—"

"Drink of Despair."

"Invented by Gramble the Grumbler, you know, during the twelfth century, we had to read about him once and his discovery of the three uses of basilia cerca—"

"Don't try to change the subject, Reg."

"So I got dragged into the lake," Regulus repeated, combing through his finer memories. He tried not to remember the lake but the image was still vivid in his mind, imprinted again and again on his consciousness by his dreams, where he revisited, over and over again, the darker places of the world. "I don't remember what happened after that, exactly. The Inferi were pulling me apart—they like to do that—and hence my hand." He held up his right hand. "But something happened. I'm not sure. Light came from somewhere and—and when I next came to, I was in Peter's cottage." He leaned against the back of the stool. "That's it, really."

Sirius was quiet, which was about the worst sign Regulus could think of. Sirius on a rant—Sirius shouting—Sirius running—even Sirius crying—they were all reassuring signs, because it meant that Sirius would do the first thing that came to his mind, making him predictable and, therefore, harmless. Sirius being quiet, on the other hand, was an unsettling sight.

"So let me get this straight," Sirius said quietly. "You found out that Voldemort was creating these Horcruxes and hiding them for safekeeping. You found out one of its locations. So naturally—naturally—you just decided to go to some cave, where you found a lake full of Inferi, and you drank a potion that you knew would impair your judgement, got dragged into a lake, and—presumably, you would have died, but you didn't."

"Sirius, I realize the value of repetition in the learning process, but really, this seems a tad redundant—"

"Do you realize how incredibly _stupid_ you were?"

The question caught him off guard. Stupid? That was a word that applied to Sirius, not him. And the look in his brother's eyes—Regulus didn't want to find out what it was. The answer, he knew, just knew, by instinct, years of fighting—the answer would hurt much more than any feud between them could.

"Stupid?" Regulus said lightly. "You must be going off your rockers. You're the stupid one, remember? I'm the selfish prat who can't think for himself."

"Would you stop joking around?"

"Again, that's your specialty, not mine—"

" _Regulus_."

Regulus looked away at the window. The flat had a nice view, if nothing else. Perhaps Sirius's taste in real estate wasn't bad after all.

"Anyway, that's what happened to my hand," Regulus muttered. "So stop bothering me about it."

Sirius was quiet for a while. Regulus wondered if there was a secret stash of dungbombs somewhere in the flat that he could steal; the silence was deafening.

"I could ask Lily." Sirius said at last.

Regulus furrowed his brows. "What?"

"Ask Lily," Sirius repeated. "About your hand. She's a Healer—certified and all. She works at St. Mungo's and she specializes in countercurses against Dark Arts. Might know a thing or two."

"Maybe," Regulus said, trying to suppress a sudden surge of hope. Could his hand be back to what it used to be?

"You could try to come and see her, you know," Sirius said casually.

Regulus tensed. "Absolutely not," he said.

Now Sirius looked annoyed. "Look, if you're squeamish about Muggleborn Healers—"

"I don't give Merlin's rat's ass whether a Healer is a Muggleborn or not," Regulus snapped. "Don't be stupid. I just can't be seen by anyone, that's all."

Sirius looked at him strangely. "What do you mean, you can't be seen by anyone?" he asked.

Regulus looked back at him incredulously. "What, you thought I could just waltz into the Ministry and proclaim my existence?"

Sirius's brows furrowed. "Why not?"

"Because I'm a Death Eater, Sirius!" Regulus yelled, exasperation almost overcoming the tension. "In case you haven't noticed, me being dead is the only thing that's keeping the authorities off my tail."

Sirius considered for a while. "Oh," he said.

"Yeah, _oh_ ," Regulus replied sarcastically. "I can't go to Mungo's, and I can't see any of your friends. I can't even go to Ollivander's for a new wand." Frustration crept into his voice. "I'm stuck here, if you must hear me say it. _I'm stuck here_."

Sirius stared at the coffee table, thinking. "You know, I might have a spare wand," he said eventually. "Used to keep several for—you know, emergencies. When you're disarmed, and stuff. And I would know exactly where they are if someone hadn't forced me to clean." He threw Regulus a dirty look as he got up from the sofa. Regulus rubbed his eyes tiredly. His emotions where careening dangerously, rocking between despair and angry determination that both seemed intent on leading him to self-destruction. Would there be salvation? All this clever tete-a-tete with Sirius—it was distracting, and strangely calming, if he could disregard the annoyance Sirius always engendered in him, but it didn't solve the essential problem. And it was starting to look like nothing could.

"There you go," Sirius said, coming from one of the kitchen cabinet. In his hand were several wands. Regulus stared at them for a while.

"If they're some of your fake wand selection," Regulus said slowly, "I'm going to stuff each and every one of them in your Holyhead Harpies action figure collection. I know you have them somewhere in the flat."

Sirius gave him another dirty look. "Fine, fine," he said, turning around to look for the real wands. "Just leave Hestia and Genevieve alone, alright?"

* * *

"Not bad for Muggle bread, eh?"

Regulus ignored for the umpteenth time Sirius's yet another jibe. Sirius had thrown several spare wands at his direction before jogging out of the flat, muttering something about breakfast. Half an hour later they were sitting on the dining table, Sirius precariously balanced on a stool, Regulus stoically sipping his tea and chewing his bread. His mind whirled a thousand miles a second.

He'd found a wand that was most pliant to his touch; it felt, for a lack of a better word, rather sensitive and moody, but it responded to his wishes most readily. During Sirius's absence, he had tried to perform several simple spells using his left hand. It felt odd, having a wand in his hand, and in his left hand, no less. He'd managed the basic levitating charm—the very first spell he'd learned—with rather mixed success, the cushion oscillating midair as though it had some mind to go back down on the ground on its own before floating again. He'd let go after several minutes. Time and practice would make it better; the maxim he'd followed religiously in quidditch served as the only guide.

"It's fine," Regulus muttered, chewing moodily. Thousand things to do, so little time. But why was he feeling so rushed?

"So," Sirius said cheerily—a rather contrived cheeriness, and Regulus knew that Sirius was, in his own way, trying to lift the atmosphere, but he didn't have it in him to nod to his beat.

"What are we doing today?" Sirius asked.

"First of all, I need to know your schedule," Regulus said without preamble. "I know you have work."

Sirius scratched his head. "Oh, yeah. I do. I guess I should tell them that I'm going back to work."

Regulus cocked his head to one side. "I thought you were working."

"I am," Sirius said. "Just took a temporary leave of absence."

"Why?"

Sirius suddenly looked uncomfortable. He shrugged nonchalantly, but Regulus saw the crease between his brows. "Needed a bit of fresh air," he said. Regulus decided not to push things further. If he was going to keep things from his brother, he couldn't expect his brother to be upfront with him about everything.

"Anyway," Sirius said. "If I start working again, it will be from next Monday—from nine to five. Lunch is from twelve to one, if you'd care to join me."

"Thanks for the offer," Regulus said drily, "but I think I'll pass."

Sirius shrugged. "Your loss," he said. Regulus shook his head.

"First of all," Regulus said, "I need the following books from the list. _Hogwarts: A History_ ; _Magick Moste Evile_ ; _Pureblood Directory_ —" Regulus considered. "That's probably all for now. I figured that, if I go to the library in the Diagon Alley, they could be easily procured."

Sirius considered. "Maybe," he said. "I doubt that you'll find _Magick Moste Evile_ or _Pureblood Directory_ at the library, though."

Regulus frowned in confusion. "Why not? It's one of the largest magical library in the world—"

Sirius nodded. "I know it is, but—well—the Ministry's been more stringent with what kind of books are made available to the public. You can sort of understand why—I mean, there was just one of the biggest wars in the wizarding history, and they're worried about people getting wrong ideas."

Regulus's brows had been climbing higher and higher during this short explanation. "So they resorted to censorship?" he said quietly. "How's that any different from what Voldemort did?"

Sirius turned defensive. "Hey, at least we don't kill people about having different ideas—"

Regulus shook his head. "That's not the problem right now. So where might I find these books?"

Sirius sighed. "The first place that comes to mind is Hogwarts."

Regulus cursed. Sirius didn't argue.

"I mean, I can ask Dumbledore if I can go in and take a look," Sirius said. "Tell him that it's research for my job, or something. I doubt that there's anything against previous students visiting the library. Really, I'm more worried about—"

"Madam Pince," Regulus finished the sentence. "I can only imagine how livid she would be to have anyone in her library, let alone _you_."

Sirius nodded with considerable satisfaction before frowning at his implication. Regulus bit back a small smile.

"Why do you need those books, anyway?" Sirius asked warily. "I thought you were done with Death Eater related activities?"

Regulus smiled bitterly. "Sirius, if you thought fighting Horcruxes would keep you away from Dark Magic, I might have to call the commissioners of N.E.W.T. and tell them that you don't even have the basic understanding of the nature of magic."

Sirius rolled his eyes but didn't say anything.

"There's something that keeps nagging in my mind," Regulus continued. "It's just a hunch, but it might be something definite. The Dark Lord—he was a parseltongue. Did you know that?"

Sirius frowned distastefully. "I'd heard the rumors," he said succinctly. Regulus nodded.

"It's true," Regulus said. "The ability to speak to snakes—only the heirs of Slytherin possess the ability. The Dark Lord used his ability as an evidence that he was, in fact, related to the founder of his house. I think that he was telling the truth at the time."

Sirius sighed. "So the old nutcase was a descendent of an even older nutcase. Small surprise there."

Regulus bit the inside of his cheek. "Sirius, the Dark Lord was born with the name Lord Voldemort. No parent would name their child Lord Voldemort."

"Do you wanna bet?" Sirius asked. "I bet our parents are dying to let your firstborn son be named Lord Voldy. Even go against the family tradition and all."

Regulus sighed exasperatedly. There was probably little use in arguing further. "My point is that if we want to figure out what the Horcruxes look like we need to at least understand who he was—who he is. Before he became Lord Voldemort. So we would know what kind of items he would choose."

"Well," Sirius said in all earnestness that was too genuine to be, well, genuine. "He was an egotistical megalomaniac. That's a start."

"You're not on the wrong track," Regulus answered. "The Horcrux that he made most recently—the one I found—it was contained in the Slytherin locket."

Sirius stilled for a moment. All fake earnestness left his face. "The Slytherin locket?" he asked quietly. "How on earth did he get hold of _that_?"

"Precisely," Regulus said. "And do you remember when I said that he was a parseltongue? I think there's a strong possibility that he was actually related to Slytherin. I mean direct lineage." He gave Sirius a fixed look.

"Bloody hell," Sirius said, and for once Regulus did not have any desire to scold him for his language.

"Exactly." His brows set in a grim, straight line. "I think it's about time we looked into the Gaunts."

* * *

"You got to thank the old loonies," Sirius said on the mid-afternoon. By that time Regulus had attempted, several times, to wash the dishes using magic and dropped the plates accidentally in the sink the equal number of times. It ended up taking even longer than it would have had he done the dishes in a Muggle way. Sirius had shown him his room ("it's a small guest room, Moony comes here to sleep over sometimes"), lent him some of his clothes ("the scarf's not hot pink, it's salmon pink, I haven't the foggiest what your problem is, Reg"), even showed him how to use the bathroom ("there: tap for sink, tap for bath. Even you should be fine," by which point Regulus was on the verge of strangling his older brother just for the sake of it), and disguised Regulus's appearance—somewhat unsuccessfully ("Oi, do you think it's easier to mar your own face?" followed by an annoyed "It's not your face, it's my face." which was invariably met with "Well, you look enough like me to fool even Prongs," which came to its inevitable end with a rough shove and Regulus's exasperated huff. Regulus ended up transfiguring his own face, which was a rather awkward business but, as Regulus decided, much more comfortable than having Sirius point his wand at his face). They were walking down the streets of London, and Regulus tried not to look around too conspicuously. The streets of London which he thought he knew so well were gone, replaced with lower buildings, darker walls and thicker layers of snow on the ground. Very few people were on the street, and Regulus remembered that it was New Year's Day. What a strange way to start another year. He closed his eyes and breathed in the cold air that made his throat shrink pleasantly. 1982. He hoped that the year would end better than it had started.

"How do you mean?"

"You remember what Mother used to say about illegitimate children? That pureblood families didn't have any bastards because the head of the family would "take care of" both the errant parent and the child. That would work in our favor—we don't have to worry about unrecorded children."

"That rarely translated into reality, though," Regulus buried his nose into the 'salmon pink' scarf. He shuddered to even imagine where Sirius might have acquired it. Probably with someone named Holly or some other sort. "We're not completely heartless."

"Maybe," Sirius said. "But just imagine what kind of stuff the Gaunts might have done."

Regulus fixed his scarf self-consciously. "The last time I heard Mother speak of them, she said they were all a little bit off."

"Completely mad, you mean," Sirius scoffed. "Generations of inbreeding."

Regulus sighed. "I hope the Pureblood Directory's regularly updated. Otherwise I'll have to start investigating personally—and I'd rather keep myself hidden as much as I can."

"Oh, don't worry," Sirius said airily. "You know how the purebloods are. It's probably updated every month or so."

Regulus scowled.

"Typical Reggie," Sirius said, his tone still airy. "You have a quest, and where do you start? In a library, of course."

"Do you think the library's open today?" Regulus said, ignoring his brother's jibe. "It's New Year's Day."

Sirius gave him an odd look. "Wizards don't celebrate New Year's, remember? We use the other astronomical calendar. And apparently a position of some planet at what-degree-angle means that we can't have New Year as New Year even though we call it New Year." Regulus again didn't answer and they walked in silence for a long while, the only sound between them the tiny crunches the pressure of the boot soles against the snowy pavement made. It was oddly peaceful, the sun clear and high in the pale blue sky, birds frolicking in the gardens. But of course it was—the war was over. If only Regulus could believe it.

"You know, I've been thinking," Sirius began casually.

"A dangerous pastime—especially for you."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "I've been thinking, what happens when we know what the Horcruxes are?"

Regulus tried not to seem too intrigued, even though it was the very question that had plagued him since he'd decided to—what was the word Sirius used again?—go on this quest.

"We get them," he answered, stuffing his hands into his pockets. He felt the grip of his wand in his left hand and felt a little more assured. "The Dark Lord didn't put any defenses that no human can't overcome."

"That's reassuring," Sirius said, "but think about it: wouldn't it be easier to—I don't know, break into Gringotts, if we had someone that was sort of… professional at breaking in?"

Regulus considered. "If you're thinking of Potter and his incessant proclivity for breaking in and entering the Slytherin common room, the answer is no."

"Not him, you git," Sirius said. "A curse-breaker."

"Do you know one?"

"Oh, just in passing," Sirius answered casually. "We're not entirely close, but, you know, we keep in touch, and stuff."

Regulus knew this innocent tone far too well. "Spill before I force it out of you."

"You don't have to be so violent," Sirius said, sounding affronted. Regulus knew that he wasn't.

"Well, who is it?"

Sirius didn't answer.

Irritated, Regulus turned to look at his brother and found him looking back at him meaningfully. They were no longer different in height; if Sirius had always been a little taller than him in the past, their eyes were level now. A pair of gray eyes met a pair of temporarily brown eyes and the pair of brown eyes widened.

"No," Regulus said instantly. "No. Absolutely not."

"Why not—"

"Leave her out of this. Do you hear me? _Leave. Her. Out of this_."

"But don't you see?" Regulus had begun to walk faster, as if getting away from Sirius could somehow get the idea out of their heads as well. Sirius quickly caught on to him, however, and kept talking. "It's perfect. She won't give either of us away—"

"Either of us?" Regulus repeated incredulously. " _Either of us_?"

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm sort of hiding a criminal." Several onlookers cast them a curious gaze and Sirius waved them off good-naturedly before turning a serious expression to Regulus. "She won't tell on us. She's more than qualified. And she has the motive to see to the end of Voldemort—maybe even more than both of us combined. She'll get the job done."

"No," Regulus said resolutely. "I won't get her involved in this."

"Reg, I realize that meeting your ex might be awkward for you, but you can't really make decision based on personal comfort right now."

"Personal comfort?" Regulus repeated, and his voice sounded hysterical—even to his own ears. "Do you think this is about personal comfort? I've caused her enough pain. Let her be, Sirius." He strode on without looking back to see if his brother was following him.

"We'll discuss this another time," Sirius's voice came from behind him and Regulus grit his teeth.

"We won't discuss this. Ever."

Sirius sighed and shook his head. "Little Reggie. Stubborn as ever."

Regulus let out a long breath, shoving the impossible possibilities away from his mind for the millionth time. Only one thing could matter in his life and it wasn't him, it wasn't Sirius, and it certainly shouldn't be anything other than bringing down Voldemort for once and for all. He would complete the quest of die trying, and if there was any time left for him after the completion of his goal—but there was only one end for those like him and it wasn't what time had in store for Sirius, or Potter, or even _her_. So he forged on, bracing himself against the winter chill, repressing the warmth that threatened to impassion him.


	4. January 1st, 1982

A/N: Thanks to all those who read and followed! And special thanks to Jenkt5 and Patrick—I can't really say much at this point in the story, but your reviews prompted me to keep writing. I really appreciate it:)

* * *

The fondest memories Regulus possessed were made in libraries.

He hadn't been the most gregarious child, a quality that his mother had been most pleased with regarding her second son. Sirius, she decided, was energetic and charismatic enough as the firstborn son; it would hardly behoove anyone to have an outspoken second child as well. It wasn't that second sons were ignored; primogeniture was not so commonly practiced in wizarding families as it was amongst Muggle families. It was simply that having a quiet second son allowed the first son to grow into the head of the family much more easily. No competition would tear the family apart, and Regulus's soft tone and reasonable arguments convinced Mrs. Black that as far as her second son was concerned, she needn't be worried; Regulus will do just fine by himself.

And the second son, knowing in the back of his mind the reasoning behind his mother's contentedness with him, spent most of his time in the family library. Regulus had been a voracious reader as a child, or so Kreacher had once said; the old family house-elf often spoke fondly of the days when Regulus would ask Kreacher, careful as you'd please, if he could fetch him the books that were out of the little boy's reach. The library was his one sanctuary in a house that was ruled by a mother who made it her business to poke into her children's business. Sirius had little patience for books as a child, her mother disliked the library due to its dusty decoration (it was the only room in the house that did not contain silver), and his father—well, as long as Regulus kept out of trouble, Mr. Black rarely ventured out of his office. So the young boy spent hours and hours in the library every day, skimming over various pictures in history books, frowning and silently trying to pronounce the odd words written on articles, essays, seminaries, half-absorbing what he encountered and leaving the rest to do their work in his unconsciousness. He'd found a favorite spot by a little niche between a side table and the third row bookshelf, where he could hide safely whenever there was a tedious family meeting. But he had been only seven by then.

He carried the habit with him as he grew up. Unless he was in the garden scratching in his notes various observations or practicing quidditch, he was crawled up in the library. At Hogwarts also he had been quick to find the fastest route to the school library, where even he was impressed by the sheer scale of the architecture and the volume of works available to him. It quickly became one of his favorite spots in the world, and, finding an agreeable corner where the sunlight shone pleasantly in the afternoon, he made himself home by an ancient table and a chair.

It was in the library when first fell in love.

Not that it was something that Regulus would ever admit to himself; he was not the kind to moon over his emotions and feelings. Come to think of it, neither was Sirius; Sirius tended to explode with feelings, but he rarely dwelled on them. Regulus never displayed his feelings, and what he did feel he kept locked away in some more private parts of his heart, where he would, if the occasion necessitated urgently, pay a visit for a bout of observation and analysis. Falling in love—what a ridiculous idea. But it had happened once.

Hogwarts library—hours and days and weeks and months became years so quickly. Years spent together in the library, always in the same spot, the ancient table by the corner where the sunlight shone warmly in the afternoon, doing homework, discussing quidditch strategies, researching, forever researching the truth of the secrets that eluded them. At some point he became used to her rhythm of writing, the way her quill unevenly scratched her parchment, her frantic flipping of pages whenever she was stuck on a problem, the faint, sweet scent of the soap she used whenever she flipped her hair from one side to the other, frustrated. The tired way she rubbed her eyes after a particularly long essay. Her wan smile that always seemed a little sad…

Perhaps it had been inevitable. She was the only girl he knew enough to respect. They didn't always see eye to eye, but they understood each other. He could make it as unromantic as he wanted. And the change—it had been gradual, so gradual that it was unnoticeable until it hit him one day that she mattered. She had a part in his life, a part that he realized he was most willing to give up for her. What ridiculous feelings his heart seemed capable of feeling, twisting painfully at the most fleeting memory of her face. He wanted her approval, her smiles, her thoughts, affection—he wanted her to share everything with him, and he everything with her.

When he first kissed her it was in the library, it was between _1848: Rebellion across Europe_ and _A Decent Proposal_ —the seventeenth shelf in the history section from the studying area. Fifth year winter. Something that he would never reveal to Sirius under any circumstances; his brother would make indecent insinuations for months. He hadn't planned on it—something that always seemed to happen whenever she was concerned. She'd already been on her tiptoes, trying to grab a book that was too high up. He was taller than her, rather glad about the fact, and—it was lovely. She was lovely. She was possibly the loveliest creature that he had the fortune to meet. Or was it misfortune? Regulus wasn't sure. For some reason any pain caused by her made him happy. If he suffered, he suffered happily. Such was the idiocy of his youth.

Regulus shook his head furiously. No use dwelling on the past. Hadn't he managed to block out unnecessary thoughts since he'd become a Death Eater? Surely he still possessed enough self-discipline to push away memories useless to the mission. But however strong his self-discipline might have been, it wasn't strong enough to halt the wave of homesickness and warmth that swallowed him when he stepped through the entrance of the public library on Diagon Alley. Libraries were a second home. Merlin, he missed reading books.

Next to him Sirius was trudging reluctantly, his hands stuck in his pockets. Regulus decided to pay him no mind. Sirius could pout all he wanted; they had a mission to accomplish, a mission over life and death. A sullen twenty-one-year-old man would have to wait.

"Where is the history section?" Regulus wondered out loud to no one in particular.

"Third floor," Sirius said, going toward a staircase that Regulus hadn't noticed before. Regulus couldn't resist raising an incredulous eyebrow.

"How did you—"

"Contrary to your belief, I do read sometimes," Sirius drawled drily, his hands still stuck in his pockets. Regulus considered.

"I did consider it a feat itself that you even knew where the library was," he settled. Sirius snorted.

"And the high and mighty heir of the Black family never even bothered to look up where a public library would be, right?"

Regulus suppressed a flush but didn't say anything.

"I have errands to run," Sirius said when they passed the counter on the third floor, Regulus trying to discreetly draw large breaths of air and find a place to lean against for a while. He swallowed. Regulus supposed that doing bookwork for Sirius was like having a Beater's bat without a Bludger for a Beater—frustrating and boring.

"I'll see you in an hour, then," he said, failing to hide his huff. "At the entrance. Might need your name to borrow a few books."

Sirius shrugged. "Fine," he said, and left without further ado. Regulus frowned; no, Sirius and he were not the most affectionate of brothers—they weren't the most affectionate of anything—and it wasn't as if he had expected Sirius to fawn over him. But had his shrug seemed sharper, more erratic than usual?

Pushing the suspicion aside, Regulus proceeded to navigate between the aisles, breathing in deeply. The musk of old paper and thinning leather and dust wafted through his nose, cold and inviting. The way the heels of his shoes clacking against the wooden floor rang in the enclosed space forced the corners of his lips to twitch ever so slightly, and something so impossible, so improbable, began to course through his veins—excitement.

He settled on a desk after his excursion, his arms laid with a few more books than just _Hogwarts: A History_ and _Purebloood Directory_ ( _Magick Moste Evile_ was, as he had predicted, not open to public viewing, and he had small inclination to invent a wild story about a lost ID and to get permission from the library); he couldn't help himself as he came across several titles that caught his eye. Perhaps the library had a long lending period, and he might be able to find some time…

Grabbing a roll of parchment that he had requested from the counter along with a spare quill and an ink bottle, he began to leaf through the books.

The last members of the Gaunt family were Marvolo Gaunt, the patriarch, with his son Morfin and daughter Merope. All three were recorded as deceased, and Regulus supposed that it must be true; most wizard records were updated magically, and when one's life ended, his magic ceased to exist in the world, and that would change the existing records accordingly. In some ways this was convenient; authors didn't have to update their books every decade and, in fact, didn't even have to check their facts.

Struck by a strange thought, he flipped hastily to the near front of the book, his fingers flying over the pages. His breaths quickened unconsciously. It couldn't be.

But it was; under the Black family, two, not one, sons were both shown to be living.

Regulus stilled for a moment, his thoughts racing a million miles per second. So he was shown to be alive. A good thing was that _Pureblood Directory_ and books similar to it were possessed more for display than actual reading, and chances were that no one would ever notice that there was no date of death under his name. Regulus wondered if his mother made his grave; he doubted it. His mother was probably trying to deny the idea of her son's death until his body actually turned up—and it never did. The thought made him guilty for being an unmindful son—he'd never even contacted her in the year he was missing—but it was all for the best, wasn't it? But his mother—she would have to suffer from grief all her life.

A strange itch caused his eyes to blink rapidly, but Regulus ignored it. There would be time for personal feelings but it was not the time.

An odd thing about the Gaunt family line, Regulus forced his thoughts back on track, was that there was no heir, something that pureblood families were almost fanatic about. In many ways this preoccupation was only natural; an heir ensured the continuation of the family name, fortune, and prestige. A lack of heir meant the end to all these things. Admittedly the Gaunts had almost no fortune left to their names, but they were still the direct descendants of Salazar Slytherin. Surely, Morfin Gaunt must have had some idea of marriage at some point in his life. But the Dark Lord—he must have been a child of the Gaunt family. How else could he be a parseltongue? And yet, had Morfin had a child, it seemed most likely that the Gaunts would have flaunted their new heir to the world...

Frowning, he went to the counter where an elderly witch was loftily reading _Witch's Weekly._

"Excuse me," he said. "Could you tell me how I could find public records for a person?"

The witch looked up from the magazine. "I could look it up in the directory," she said. "It's a rather complicated process. Who are you looking for?"

"Morfin Gaunt," Regulus replied, wondering if it would be a wise idea to mention the Gaunt name in a public space. But the wizarding society in general was unaware of the significance of the family name anyway; it couldn't be _bad_.

The witch typed on a typewriter, but there was no paper attached to it. "Morfin Gaunt. This could take some time."

Regulus shrugged. "That's fine—I'm sitting at the table over there by the window," he said, pointing at the said location. "Please tell me if you find anything."

The witch only nodded, and Regulus went back to his table, vaguely chastened.

The next step could only be trickier. Regulus didn't know how the Dark Lord had acquired Slytherin's locket, but he presumed—and the precariousness of the reasoning made him feel even more insecure than he already was—that it once belonged to the Gaunts. Most family heirlooms, unless they were up for sale—and it was very rare that families would put up family heirlooms for sale—were kept safely inside a family. The Gaunts might have been poor, but Regulus doubted that they would go so far as to sell the only artifacts that gave their family name significance. Such was the foolish side of pureblood aristocracy.

The most plausible theory was that the Dark Lord had gained it by force, which would have to mean that he came in direct contact with the Gaunts. Again, not an impossibility. So he would have paid a visit to the family house—another reason why he should at least pay a visit to the place. Regulus had a vague idea of where the cottage was; Little Hangleton, his mother had once mentioned disdainfully, hardly worth a Black's notice, as the Gaunts sank deeper and deeper into obscurity and poverty whereas the last few generations of Blacks knew nothing but prosperity and comfort. But all the family politics aside, the Dark Lord's choice of object for a holder of his soul seemed oddly… sentimental. Regulus supposed that anyone would become a little sentimental if they had to choose an object to put their soul in, and it befitted the Dark Lord to choose something that was worth so much, but why did the choice feel so out-of-character? Or was it completely in character?

If the Dark Lord had been looking for valuable artifacts alone, then he would have had a thousand options to choose from, from an ancient Egyptian sorcerer's scepter to goblin daggers. But he went more specific—something of Salazar Slytherin, one of the most famous wizards in magical history. This had bothered Regulus when he had been looking for a copy of the locket after he had heard vaguely from Kreacher what the Horcrux looked like, but he had decided to ponder on the topic at a later time. And the idea bothered him still.

 _Hogwarts: a History_ was quite clear on the matter: each founder left one artifact to represent the house. Ravenclaw left behind her diadem, Gryffindor left behind his sword, and Hufflepuff left behind her cup. Regulus doubted that the Dark Lord chose to make the sword of Gryffindor his Horcrux; he wouldn't go that far and, besides, it was in the headmaster's study (he had seen it several times during his visits to the office as a prefect). But no one knew where the diadem or the cup was. Had the Dark Lord actually tracked it down and made them his own? A more likely scenario was that he had lackeys whom he employed to do the dirty job—but who? The Dark Lord, as powerful as he was, did not have an income, something the Death Eaters whispered behind his back, especially those who "supported" his cause much more financially than the others. In that sense the Dark Lord was vulnerable; he had no capital, other than that which he had extorted from his followers; he had no permanent residence, no way to feed himself, no place to sleep, and in that sense, Sirius, as disowned as he was, was much richer than the Dark Lord ever could be. So if the Dark Lord had managed to coerce some of his followers to pay for those artifacts—but that would leave too much trail, and that was not his style. The Dark Lord used showmanship to cause fear, but when it came to actual missions, he preferred discretion, something that Regulus was especially well versed in—a quality that the Dark Lord had prized in him, Regulus knew. It had never been Regulus's intellect, which would have only served to question the Dark Lord's motives, nor his quick skill with his wand that the Dark Lord valued the most. A bitter taste filled his mouth and he quickly swallowed, moving on.

So let him assume that the Dark Lord had somehow managed to find the diadem and the cup; there were others. There must have been others. It wouldn't have surprised Regulus had the Dark Lord split his soul so many times to the point where there was nothing left. The most difficult variable to figure out in this quest was the number: how many Horcurxes the Dark Lord had managed to create before, according to Sirius, he burned down. Regulus sighed, putting down the quill on the old table. What if the Dark Lord had created more than three Horcruxes—what if he had created seven? A dozen? How would he figure them out, one by one, hunt them down and destroy them? Did he have enough time left in his life to accomplish it?

The best assumption—and it was again only guesswork—he could come up with was that the Dark Lord must have left hints, if not for himself, for his followers in case he perished; after all, he had created the Horcruxes for that very purpose. He himself would not be able to resurrect himself, as he was, for all intention and purposes, dead; so another person would have to get involved in his revival. Someone he could trust enough to guard his soul—but that sounded too strange. The Dark Lord did not trust anyone, and to trust someone to guard one's soul—that was love. He was incapable of love. Regulus supposed that there was always Bellatrix, but she was frankly insane. Madness might be one form of love—and it must be more constant than loyalty out of fear—but would that assure the Dark Lord enough?

"Here." The voice shook him from his glum musings and Regulus looked up to find the old witch staring down at him, her eyes strangely owlish behind her spectacles. She was frailer than she had appeared behind the counter. Regulus squinted in confusion.

"The records," the witch said. "I could find only newspaper articles; for documents you'll have to visit the Ministry."

"Oh," he said. "Thank you. Thank you very much." The witch nodded and left.

Regulus bent over the articles, brows furrowed. The first one was dated 1925, when certain wizards in Little Hangleton by the names of Marvolo and Morfin Gaunt were arrested and sentenced to Azkaban for terrorizing Muggles and attacking a Ministry official three years and six months, respectively. Hardly surprising, as purebloods' habit of "Muggle hunting"—not unlike fox hunting the Muggle aristocrats used to enjoy—was much more common in those days. The other article, dated 1943, reported that Morfin Gaunt was again sent to Azkaban for the murder of a Muggle family called the Riddles. He was in a rather disorderly state of mind when he was arrested but, despite the history of madness in the family, the officials took his free confession of guilt at face value and, after checking his wand which revealed that indeed the last curse performed with the wand was _Avada Kedavra_ —chucked him into Azkaban. They wanted to believe his guilt, Regulus thought bitterly. They saw the case and there was no trace of doubt that the mad Morfin did it. _Pureblood Directory_ had indicated that Morfin had died soon after his imprisonment, so there would be no sense in trying to find him. Regulus wondered. Morfin Gaunt had probably been paranoid enough about blood status to not touch Muggle women in the village—although he could well be wrong, considering what hypocrisy the purebloods were capable of. But supposing that Morfin was fanatic enough about blood status to not have touched a Muggle woman and, knowing that no woman from a respectable, acceptable pureblood family would have considered Morfin Gaunt for a husband (madness was one thing, but lack of fortune must have been a deal-breaker), then Merope, the sister, was the only viable candidate for investigation—she could have had a child. That was the only logical explanation, wasn't it?

"You're late." Sirius stood before him, arms crossed in front of his chest, peering down at Regulus the way one would peer down at a queer, funny animal.

"I was thinking," Regulus said eventually. Sirius rolled his eyes.

"In case you were wondering—and you probably weren't—you're late _half an hour_. Do you know what kind of thoughts crossed my mind during the thirty minutes I've looked for you?"

Regulus raised his eyebrow. "Now I'm all for personal change and development, but don't tell me you were actually _worried_ about me, Sirius." Sirius scowled.

"Don't be ridiculous," he snapped. "I was just worried about wasting good money on this." With those words Sirius threw a vial at him. Regulus's right hand shot out instinctively to catch it, only to let it slide off his hands to fall onto the floor. The vial, it seemed, was hard enough not to break despite the impact. Sirius's eyebrows formed a perfect semi-circle.

"Huh," he said. "So the anti-breaking charm actually worked."

Regulus, meanwhile, busied himself with looking for the vial, trying not to dwell too long on the fact that he failed to catch something that was twice as large as a Snitch—especially when it was Sirius who had thrown it. The fact weighed heavy on his heart. "What's this?" he asked, turning it around. The liquid inside the vial was mint green, which seemed rather promising.

"Reliever," Sirius said, drawing up a chair across from him. "I asked for the strongest antidote they had for injury sustained by Dark Magic, but apparently you need Healer's special prescription to get that. And as we both know, _somebody_ didn't want to see a Healer." Sirius threw him a dirty look but Regulus ignored this jibe. So this was the errand Sirius had to run—get medicine for him. Regulus would rather that he hadn't, but he wasn't particularly _displeased_ that Sirius had thought about him a bit…

"That somebody is supposed to be dead right now," he merely responded, uncorking the vial and sniffing it cautiously. IVery strong peppermint shot through his nostril the way vodka went through the throat. "Cheers," he said, holding the vial up at Sirius, who had an odd expression on his face.

"What's it like?" he asked. "I'm hoping that it's nasty."

Regulus wrinkled his nose. "Imagine Firewhiskey distilled to its essence," he managed, feeling the liquid burn its way down his throat. Merlin, that was _hot_. Sirius sighed plaintively.

"I got you the good stuff, then," he said. "Damn it. I was hoping at least Polyjuice-potion nasty."

Regulus raised his eyebrow. "Have had an experience with it, then?"

Sirius snorted. "How do you think we've managed to lead the Slytherin first-years to—" His eyes widened, realizing his mistake. Regulus's eyes narrowed.

"I meant to say, how do you think we've managed _not_ to lead the Slyther—"

" _You_ drew them into the Forbidden Forest?" his voice grew louder with each word.

"Not me, per se, you know, me, Prongs, Wormtail—"

" _You_ —" Regulus sat there, temporarily lost for words. He'd spent hours in the Forest searching for the first-years. Hours for the ten first-years who were by the break of dawn so scared out of their wits that a rumor flew few years later that that particular class never signed up for Care of Magical Creatures. They'd never caught the perpetrators, and the first-years had been too disoriented to really be of any help. All they repeated was that the fifth-year prefects had led them, but Regulus knew that he'd never done it.

"Do you realize that they could have been killed?" he hissed, noticing that other people in the library were giving them annoyed looks. "A group of them was found near the acromentula nest—"

Sirius's expression turned gleeful. "Really? Merlin, and we were regretting the month we spent brewing that potion—"

"You never learn, do you?" Regulus stood up hastily, feeling the hard wooden table bump against his thighs. He didn't even wince. "The biggest wizarding war of history just decimated at least twenty percent of the wizarding population, and you're _still_ happy that a bunch of Slytherins almost died. Don't you have any respect for life?"

A pink flush crept up Sirius's cheeks, and in the back of his mind Regulus knew that this was a bad, bad sign; a telltale signal that Sirius was about to explode, lash out, or often both. He'd seen enough of the fights between his brother and his mother to know. But right now he failed to act on his caution, he would rather fight… he'd never been this short-tempered before, had he?

"Rich coming out of your mouth, seeing as you were Dea—" Sirius caught himself just in time, and looked around furtively before furiously hissing, "a _you-know-what_!"

"Like the Order members were any better? You killed as much as we did—"

"Hey, we weren't the ones who went around and killed Muggles for fun—"

"Those weren't the Death Eaters, you prat, they were supremacists—"

"Same difference—"

" _No it isn't!_ " Regulus's eyes flashed and even Sirius drew back temporarily. "They're not the same, and it's your own fault for being such a prejudiced _simpleton_ that you can't tell the difference. Just what kind of people do you think joined the legion of the Dark Lord, Sirius? Those who feared their lives, those who wanted a bit of power, those who felt compelled to take sides and fighting on the side of the Order felt too risky—do you imagine that all of them were purebloods? More than two thirds of the members were half-bloods of some sort, and yes, there were half-blood supremacists, but even the Dark Lord was one of the half-blood supremacists. But not all Death Eaters are purebloods and not all pureblood or Death Eaters hunted the Muggles for fun. That's the logic of the ignorant." Regulus drew in a shaky breath. He was out of air. "That's all."

Sirius's eyes narrowed. "You haven't changed at all, have you?" he said.

Regulus felt like the air was being knocked out of his chest again. "What?"

"You. You're still going on about that argument that 'not all purebloods are bad'—"

"They _aren't_ all bad, even your mate Potter's a pureblood—"

Sirius's voice dropped to a dangerous growl. "Don't bring James into this. You don't even deserve to talk about him."

Regulus's hands balled into fists and he tried not to show how much the comment stabbed his guts like a dagger wielded by an expert assassin. This was why he'd tried to remain a recluse, work from behind the scenes, not come in contact with anyone—what was the point of trying to make the world understand, when the world was clearly fine functioning by its own logic? When the world was fine without him, what was the point of trying to forcefully impose himself into the unwelcome household?

Unfortunately, Sirius wasn't done. "I thought that you might have realized something—I don't know, that our parents were pureblood maniacs—"

"For Merlin's sake, I never denied that our parents were a little off—"

"Really? Because from what I've heard, you were just defending the Death Eaters—"

"Why shouldn't I?" Regulus's voice now sounded almost hysteric, even to his own ears. Now the nearby readers were definitely looking at them, and even the witch behind the counter had put down her _Witch's Weekly_. "Did it ever occurred to you, Sirius, that the Death Eaters are actual people? Actual people with feelings and weaknesses, just like everyone else?"

"If they were just like everyone else, then why couldn't they _act_ like everyone else? You don't see any regular wizard on the street deciding to just join Voldemort's terrorist group."

"Sirius, I realize that it might be difficult for you to believe that there is _complexity_ to every situation. Your logic that all Death Eaters are pureblood supremacists and therefore bad just doesn't translate into the real world—"

"Stop being so BLOODY CONDESCENDING!" Sirius's face was now fully red. The breaking point. "If you're going to defend your actions and say that you've done nothing wrong, then fine. Do what you want. But don't expect me to help you." He grabbed a parcel from the table. "You know what, sometimes—and I mean very rarely—I wondered if I made a mistake at sixteen. If I shouldn't have left you. Thank Merlin that I did. You've just proven that I hadn't. I don't want to see you ever again." With those words Sirius stalked out of the library, his robes swishing behind him like a trail of dark cloud.

Regulus stood still, looking at the disappearing image of his brother's back. Hollowness began to replace the hesitant beating of his heart, his rebellious mind, every sensation of his body, until there was nothing left but himself, himself and hollowness inside of him. He managed to take a breath and it felt like walking on a trail of fire. The corners of his eyes stung. Crying. Was he crying? He wanted to. But he couldn't. He wanted to cry, but he couldn't. He had to—keep going. There was nothing else left to do but to keep going. He tried to take his foot off the floor and put it at a new place. It was done. It was done, wasn't it? How did they go from getting medicine for his condition to— _this_?

Could there truly be no other way for them?

* * *

The town of Little Hangleton must have once been charming, or so Regulus thought, slowly making his way on the main street. The streets were laid with cobblestone, and buildings were all low, squeezed together. It was small, smaller than even the tiny village where Peter had taken care of him, and the memories filled him both with guilt and wistfulness. He couldn't go back there. He simply couldn't.

All memories aside, Regulus was quite certain that it wasn't his own mood adding a layer of dust over the windowpanes, soot to the chimneys, and paint flecks to the walls. Most of the stores—and there were few of them—were closed, and Regulus remembered with chagrin that it was still the New Year's Day. Well, he didn't have time until tomorrow—he didn't even have a place to stay for the night. The only place open was a small restaurant down the far end of the road, and Regulus slowly trudged his way there, weighing his options. He couldn't afford a meal, but would he be able to talk to the owner anyway? He tentatively reached out to the handle of the door and pulled it open.

"Pardon me," Regulus said. "I was looking for some relatives of mine, but seem to have gotten lost."

The inside of the restaurant was small and poorly lit; the owner must not have been expecting many customers. Or at least, so Regulus reasoned, trying not to pay too much attention to how the darkness was affecting him. In the far corner of the restaurant stirred a small woman of at least fifty, squinting through the dimness at him.

"Who is it?" she croaked, and the tone of her voice went along with the restaurant nicely—low, cranky, ominous. Regulus shook off the uneasy feeling the second time.

"I don't mean to intrude," Regulus said hesitantly, "but all I've heard from—from my father was that his parents came from Little Hangleton. He didn't like to talk about it much, you understand."

"His parents?" The woman slowly made her way from behind the counter, and Regulus couldn't help but to size her up instantly. She could probably wield a hot frying pan, he guessed, but she would probably have a harder time throwing him out of the restaurant. Thank Merlin. "We don't have many people who come and go, young man."

"I understand," Regulus said easily. "But I just wanted to check. He passed away recently—" sort of a truth, except that it had been almost three years— "and I just wanted to go a bit more into family history, you understand. My mother is still having a hard time without him." Again, a sort of a half truth.

The woman scrutinized him. "Come to think of it, you do look familiar," she said slowly, her eyes focusing on his face. Her eyes widened. " _Master Riddle_?"

Regulus frowned. That was not what he had been expecting. "Riddle?" he repeated, remembering that it was the name of the family Morfin was accused of murdering, but the woman was apparently not hearing him.

"Oh, but this can't be," the woman said. "Master Riddle died decades ago."

Regulus slowly approached her, trying not to look too focused. "How do you mean?"

The woman's eyes grew glassy. "The Riddles—the most wonderful family you could imagine. They owned the manor up there—" she pointed at hills that Regulus had noticed earlier— "and we were all involved somehow, the townspeople. I was the family cook for many years."

Regulus nodded. "You mentioned—you mentioned Master Riddle. Was he the head of the house?"

The woman shook her head. "He was the son—Master Tom Riddle. Oh, the most handsome young man you could imagine. We all had high hopes for him; girls from the next town all fawned over him, as you would expect. If it hadn't been for that mishap—"

"What mishap?" Regulus said, leaning in unconsciously.

The woman looked around, her eyes roaming nervously. "Now, I don't like to speak ill of the dead, as you can well imagine—" Regulus nodded sympathetically. "But that Gaunt girl from the shack right outside of the woods—they say she seduced him." Her voice grew lower and Regulus drew closer to listen. "Must've been difficult, she wasn't the bonniest girl out there—but for some reason Master Riddle ran away with her when he was twenty. Came right back, of course, just a few months, but none of the girls ever looked at him again. Such a shame," the woman sighed. "He could have had a beautiful wife."

"He ran away with Merope Gaunt?" the question shot out of him before he could even stop himself and Regulus berated himself immediately. What was he thinking? But the woman looked at him with surprised but unsuspicious eyes.

"You know her?" she asked. Regulus debated.

"Well—I—you seem to have noticed already, but—" Regulus cleared his throat. "Merope had a son by Tom Riddle, you might have heard—"

"Oh there were rumors, dreadful rumors, and Master Riddle never said anything, but—are you saying that it's true? Master Riddle had a child?"

"Well, Merope had a child," Regulus said. "And—well—the child grew up and got married and—had—." Regulus made a vague gesture toward himself. The woman clasped her hands to her mouth, apparently shocked.

"I understand that this may be unpleasant, as, well, my father wasn't the most legitimate of children—"

"I thought you looked similar," the woman murmured in a low voice, almost to herself. "The dark hair. Master Riddle had darker eyes, but the face—you do look mightily like Master Riddle. He was just as handsome—a little bit stockier, but still handsome. My lord." The woman looked at him up and down. Regulus swallowed. "Is it truly you?"

"I've been told that I have my mother's eyes." Not untrue. But his parents had the same eyes. "My father died a couple of months back," Regulus said, feeling the irony. The Dark Lord did burn to the ground a few months back, didn't he? "I was trying to find more information about his side of the family."

"Well, then, come and sit down," the woman ushered him to one of the tables. "I'll tell you everything I know—I'll even call Frank! The gardner—he used to work for the family as well. He'll be mighty pleased to see you."

And that was how Regulus Arcturus Black, the ninety-somethingth heir of the Black family, temporarily became the son of (presumably) the Dark Lord, the most dangerous wizard of all times. The revelation that he resembled the Dark Lord—or, at least, his presumed father—bothered him much more than he had expected. He was used to people calling him handsome—after all, the heirs of the Black family were often flattered, mostly with ulterior motives—and he was self-conscious enough to notice that the girls usually liked how he looked. Something that he used to take advantage of at Hogwarts. They weren't his proudest moments, but to think that the Dark Lord once looked like him—it unsettled him. Was Sirius right? Was he not that different from the image Sirius held of purebloods?

Despite Regulus's assiduous protests and not-so-vague hints that he couldn't afford to pay, the woman brought food from the kitchen, telling him that he looked far too thin (another thing that he was beginning to get used to hearing). The reflection against the silverware told him that the disguise charm he had put on had indeed worn off; his hair was black again, and his eyes gray. He hoped that the wizards at the library had seen the disguised version of himself, but the worry quickly dissipated when the food came. He hadn't realized how hungry he was.

Frank the gardner did not end up showing up, but the woman told Regulus enough about the family to get a generic picture. The Riddles were a wealthy family in the town; the Gaunts were living right above the line of abject poverty, barely making do, and plagued with insanity. None of the townspeople dared to approach them; the father and the son especially were known for their violent temper. The daughter, "a pathetic little thing," the woman called her, was abused; when Regulus asked the woman why townspeople didn't do anything about it despite knowing it, the woman muttered something vague about not wishing to get involved and the violent father. The father and the son soon went to prison; the entire town rejoiced at the fact. Soon after the daughter drew up enough resources to seduce the only son of the Riddle family—bewitched him, the woman said.

"Not actual magic, of course," the woman said. "That would be silly. But the girl had nothing—I mean nothing. She was ugly, mark my words, downright ugly, and she had no money. How else would she have convinced Master Riddle to come with her?"

Regulus listened silently, taking in the words. So there was a rumor, nothing more, of a child between Tom Riddle and Merope. It would be hard to confirm, especially if Merope did not report the birth of her child. And he had no idea what name Merope had given to her child.

"What happened to her? Merope Gaunt?" Regulus asked.

The woman waved her hand dismissively. "Died. Somewhere in London, I heard. She'd led Master Riddle there, and I doubt that she left."

Regulus did not stay for long after that. The woman seemed to have formed some sort of attachment from the knowledge that Regulus was a direct descendant of her former Master, and tried to persuade him to stay for tea, but Regulus declined. Instead he stepped outside the restaurant after asking her for directions and thanking her, bracing his shoulders against the bitter cold. The food had been warm and nice, but his inside still felt hollow. Damn Sirius. Damn him for being so persuasive and indifferent and hurtful. He found an alleyway next to an old bookshop and quickly Dissaparated. Damn Sirius for all he cared.

The Gaunt shack was in shambles. Vines climbed their way up to the very chimney, and the entire house was smothered in plants that it appeared like a natural part of the scenery. He circled around it a couple of times, muttering detection charms. The cave had been in a remote location and still the Dark Lord had built strong defenses to keep people off; Regulus didn't know what he would find inside the shack—there was always a possibility that nothing would be inside—but he wanted to be prepared. Nothing serious jumped out at his senses and he stopped in front of the house, where a snake was pinned in front of the door. Regulus raised an eyebrow. Charming taste—comparable to the heads of the house-elves inside the Grimmauld Place.

He knocked on the door. It swung open by itself. A gust of wind greeted him, a breath of wind from Zephyrs himself, and Regulus staggered back a couple of steps, taken aback by its coldness. Yes, it was winter, but the wind was freezing. Had someone propped open one of the windows? But he had not seen any windows when he was looking around...

He stepped inside cautiously, his wand shaking imperceptibly in his hand. The inside of the house was slightly better than the outside, which was to say that it was also in shambles. A sick feeling began to spread in his stomach—nerves, he decided with some disdain. As if something could go wrong in this empty house. The Gaunts were dead; there should be no one inside. Yet, something felt amiss; something was wrong with this accursed place. What, Regulus couldn't tell.

The floorboards creaked every time he took another step, and soon after he gave up trying to be silent. Beside the rooms themselves there were few things to observe within the house; most of the furniture, it seemed, was carried away or sold off, and apart from a shabby table in what he guessed used to be the living room there was nothing worth noticing. Yet the sick feeling in his stomach increased, making his entire body feel light and unsteady. He swayed unconsciously to his side, catching himself by the edge of the table at the last second. He frowned. What was going on?

A small buzz began to ring inside his head. It wasn't one of the warning signals that the instinct sent to the brain—no. A literal buzz, getting louder each second, began to make his head spin, and Regulus tried to breath in deeply to steady himself, but it was as if an invisible pair of hands was constricting his throat. Trap. The gust of wind when he entered. It was a trap. Why couldn't he see it before? He automatically tightened the grip on his wand. His new, unfamiliar wand and himself, who hadn't used magic in over a year. What a fool he was.

He leaned against the table, coughing. _Think_ , he told himself. _Calm down and think_. There were two reasons why this place would have defensive spells cast around it. Either the owner did not wish to have any intruders, or someone wanted to keep people away from this place. Regulus didn't doubt for a second that Marvolo and Morfin Gaunt would have used every protective spell they knew to secure this place; Merlin knew what kind of spells his mother used on Grimmauld Place. But they were both dead, and the protective spells by their nature would have ended with them. So someone else had cast these spells. Someone else who knew about the Gaunts and their small shack in Little Hangleton, someone who had something to hide…

He coughed again, swearing inwardly. How did the Dark Lord acquire the Slytherin's Locket, he had asked himself. How, indeed. The Guants would have parted from it over their dead body. So there was only one explanation; he took it from their owners by force. So much Regulus had already guessed. Of course the Dark Lord had known about this place, about his relatives, had known about his heritage that he later showed off to the world. How could have this possibility never occurred to him before? Did he truly believe that he could simply waltz into an abandoned shack and expect to be fine?

But if it truly was the Dark Lord who had cast these spells, there was still hope; he would have wanted to hold off the intruder, not kill them outright. He would have wanted them alive to question their motives later. Which meant that some time was still left to him, precious little time.

He turned around and took another step. There had been a small, rotting bed and a small wardrobe in the master bedroom. Not the most ideal hiding place, but Regulus had little choice otherwise. He staggered to the doorframe, leaning heavily against it, gasping.

" _Accio_ ," he tried, but nothing came. Just as expected. But where would the Dark Lord hide the Horcrux, whatever it looked like? He did not seem like the type to hide things under the bed.

A searing pain blinded him for a second and his knees gave way beneath him, making him kneel on the cold dusty floorboard. His left hand lost strength and dropped his wand. Regulus opened his eyes; his right hand had automatically reached for his left wrist. His mind whirled in confusion. The Dark Mark had not burned in almost a year, even during the time that Voldemort had been active. He uncovered his wrist and the tattoo, a daily reminder of his past that he tried everything to cover up, jumped out at him like an angry snake, its etching darker than the finest jet black ink. A summon? Impossible. But he was near. Very near. Yes, the Dark Lord had given his servant the best key to finding him; he himself created the key to his demise. It could only be.

Regulus shakily got up, supporting his body on the doorframe. His nails dug into the age-old wooden panel, the splinters digging beneath his fingers. Pain, different from the weight in his stomach and the dizzying sensation inside his head, cleared his mind. He staggered inside, trying to keep breathing, however shallowly. _In, out. In, out._ The burning sensation on his left wrist grew stronger. Yes, he was on the right track. But where—

He threw open the wardrobe doors, but there was nothing there. The drawers inside the wardrobe were similarly empty. He covered his mouth and coughed again from the bottom of his stomach; on his hand was blood. The effect of the spell was getting stronger. What could he do?

He sank to his knees again, clutching his abdomen. The noise in his head grew louder and louder. What could he do? He couldn't apparate out of the house; he'd checked for the anti-apparation charm. Besides, it was not as if he had anywhere to go. But he still hadn't found the Horcrux; if nothing was to come out of this foolish enterprise than at least he would have to find out what the second Horcrux even _looked_ like.

He laid his forearms on the floor and doubled over, his head drawn between his shoulders. His head felt like it was about to burst and dark spots began to appear in front of him. Merlin. Couldn't _anything_ go painlessly? Was everything—his family, his life, his thoughts—to be filled with nothing but _pain_? Was that what destiny had in store for him—pain and death? He had once thought that he was ready for that and more, ready to meet his timely end, but he was still alive and every thought that occupied him screamed at him to run away from pain, from humiliation, from everything that he thought he could once bear. What a frail creature he was. Perhaps Sirius was right. He wasn't strong enough.

The burn on his left wrist sharpened, as if someone was holding his arm out above a blazing fire, threatening to burn his arm off if he didn't comply. Regulus frowned despite his delirious state. Floor. The Horcrux was closer to the floor.

Instinctively he peered beneath the bed, but there was nothing there but corpses of dead spiders and cockroaches. He reached for his wand that he'd dropped earlier and this time the wand responded to him, flying into his grasp. Regulus breathed out a sigh of relief. Yes…

" _Reducto_ ," he whispered, and a few floorboards creaked in response, some of them splintering imperceptibly due to the magic, but they remained the same. Regulus sat up with difficulty, supporting his weight on his useless right hand. His eyes became blurry.

" _Reducto_ ," he said with more strength, and some of the floorboards were finally torn off from their original places, the nails popping and rolling away to far corners of the room. Regulus frowned at the sight and—there, at the middle of the room, there was a small hollow space beneath the boards. He scrambled to the place, and the burn on his forearm became almost unbearable. He would have whooped in victory had there been any strength left in him…

Beneath the board a strange light emanated from an object that was covered by a sphere of gray clouds. It looked almost like a Snitch, a very dark, tormented sort of a Snitch—someone must have used pewter instead of gold to paint it—and instinctively, because he knew no other way, Regulus reached out to grab it. After all, he was a Seeker—Seekers caught the Snitches, that's what they were supposed to do…

A jolt of pain shot through his arms and Regulus would have gasped if there had been breath left in him to gasp. Every fiber of his muscle was on fire; that was the only description that he could come up with. Cruciatus couldn't have been worse. His mouth opened to let out a scream, but nothing came out—there was nothing inside of him that could—

His vision blackened completely. Darkness surrounded him, darkness and pain. In a distant sort of way he could feel something hard and cold in his palm, something smooth yet immeasurably unyielding. So there was _something_. He supposed that he should feel triumphant; he'd managed to find a second Horcrux; now if only he could—

Someone was calling his name from a faraway place. Who? His father? He'd passed away when Regulus was eighteen; it had been only a few months after graduation. Natural causes, the Healer had said. Black men weren't known for living long. Well, there was grandfather Pollux, and great-uncle Sirius, but recently the average lifespan had shortened to less than sixty years. Generations of inbreeding, people whispered behind their backs, as if he couldn't hear every single one of them. And the Black women, they said that the women survived long because they let madness consume them. Perhaps they weren't so different from the Gaunts after all.

The voice was growing louder, frantic. Frantic? Why would anyone feel frantic in afterlife? Was afterlife more eventful than he had supposed? After all, eternity with nothing would be boring…

Thoughts grew fainter. Someone kept calling for him, calling his name, but Regulus couldn't respond to them. _Sorry_ , he thought. _I seem to be rather indisposed, but I will try to respond as soon as I can..._

Then darkness came around him and there was no more.


	5. January 1st, 1982-January 19th, 1982

James Potter watched his best friend with a considerable amount of distress.

Not that he was a naturally worrying sort, mind you. He was in fact known for being one of the most laid-back people in Remus's vicinity; Remus, who was constantly on edge from his condition and general expectation about the world—expectation that the world would let him down—would know. In fact, James often prided himself on his ability to remain calm in times of distress despite his outward appearance of cheerful spontaneity. So he wasn't being overly emotional when he watched his friend with a certain amount of dreadful expectation; his instincts were simply proving themselves to be correct.

"Sirius, you're scaring away the cat," Lily pointed out, putting down her teacup on the coffee table. Harry was on her lap, watching his godfather curiously, but his attention was soon diverted by a shiny object on a cushion that he would later learn to call a button.

"Damn the cat," Sirius swore, and James raised his eyebrows.

"Language, Padfoot," he reminded him, but Sirius merely waved his hand dismissively.

"That idiot," he said for the thousandth time. "That _bloody idiot_."

"Who is he talking about again?" asked Lily, who had arrived not too long ago to find Sirius pacing in the livingroom and James quietly making tea.

"No idea," James said tiredly, leaning back into the sofa. In fact he did have an idea, but the idea was so far-fetched, so incredibly impossible, that he dismissed it before he even thought about it.

" _James, I need to tell you something," Sirius had said to him one day, his face grave._

 _James had been going over the paperwork that was due the day after, and his eyes showed the fatigue that his voice tried to hide. Since Voldemort's fall things had been as twice as busy as it used to be during the war—if that was even possible. But James supposed that it was probably a good thing that he was busy; it meant that Aurors were doing everything they could to bring peace and order back into the wizarding society._

" _This is an unexpected surprise," James had said, trying to ignore the graveness in Sirius's eyes and the fact that he had called him "James." They never called each other by their given names. That was for paperwork and gravestones. "You usually never come to the Auror office."_

" _Can't stand the formality," Sirius muttered, fidgeting already. His eyes were on a million different places in a second. "I just needed to tell you something."_

 _James deliberated. "Alright, then," he said. "What is it?"_

 _Sirius still wouldn't meet his eyes. "It's a bit useless, really."_

 _James tried to remain patient. "What is it, Padfoot?"_

 _Sirius cleared his throat and mumbled something._

" _Sorry, didn't catch that," James said. Sirius tried again. James paused._

" _I don't know if that's a good idea, mate," he said eventually._

 _Sirius cleared his throat. "I know," he said._

" _You don't even know where he was when he disappeared," James said against his better judgement. Could he understand Sirius's feelings? Definitely. Did he want him to go? That was a more complicated matter; in many ways Sirius was his brother and he never questioned that relationship. Nothing good ever came to Sirius in his relationship with the other brother, the "real" brother. What if—what if Sirius never got over not being able to accomplish what he was trying to do?_

" _I still have to try, James," Sirius said. "I've got to."_

 _James sighed, a resignation. "Why?" he said at last._

 _Sirius looked at a faraway place that James couldn't reach. "Because I think that he would have done the same for me."_

This was almost two months ago, about a week after Voldemort's defeat at the Battle of Lestrange Manor. Sirius quit his job—temporary leave of absence, he'd assured James, but James wasn't convinced—and left without another word. James didn't hear from Sirius for almost two months—a feat by itself. It used to be such that they couldn't go for two _hours_ without talking to each other about some inane subject; in fact, Lily had propositioned a "no talking to Sirius" during honeymoon, a proposal which was promptly rejected by both men involved. Little Prongsie would never know if he was doing something right or wrong unless there was the incorrigible Sirius Black to guide him, Sirius had argued, and James, the idiot that he was (from Lily's affectionate point of view), had readily agreed. But now here was Sirius, whom he had not seen for two months after that meeting, having missed not only the Christmas party but the New Year's Eve party as well, pacing angrily in his livingroom. James couldn't process it.

"Did you—did you manage to do it? What you said you were going to do?" he asked hesitantly. Next to him Lily gave him a curious look, but James made a gesture that said, _I'll explain later_.

Sirius let out a bark of laugh. "Manage to do—oh, Prongs." Sirius gave him a strange smile. "You won't believe it."

James felt his spine tense. "Wait, are you saying—are you saying that you found his body? _You actually found his body_?"

"If only I were so lucky," Sirius muttered darkly. "There was the body, Prongs. There was the body—and there was the mind as well. Body and mind."

Lily frowned. "What are you two talking about?" she asked. Sirius seemed to shake out of his current state.

"You haven't told her?" he asked James, who was now currently avoiding his wife's eyes.

"I thought you wouldn't want me to," he muttered, uncomfortable, aware of Lily's lovely green eyes that were focused on him in steely slits.

" _What_ wouldn't Sirius want me to know, James?" she asked sharply, but it was neither Sirius nor James that answered her but something else entirely: a knock from the door.

Everyone froze for a second, old habits kicking in.

James's hand automatically reached for his wand on the side table. Lily's arms wound themselves protectively around Harry. Even Sirius stopped pacing and stood still, his nose in the air like a dog that was sniffing out danger from the air. They stayed in their positions for a second, aware of the wave of stress and attention kicking in before their brains told them to relax; the war was over; there was no danger whatsoever.

Sirius was the first to react.

"Expecting someone?" he asked casually, far too casually.

"No," James frowned. "I mean, unless you are going to the event at the hospital you told me about—"

"No, I thought it would be better to stay home tonight," Lily said, also frowning.

"I'll get the door, then," James said, slowly rising from the sofa.

His hand settled on the doorknob. Behind him Sirius was crooning over Harry and making funny noises, apparently having calmed down enough to pay attention to his godson. Lily was laughing—James had to admit that when it came to entertainment Sirius was better than him—and even Harry was making delighted noises that babies made when they were happy. Merlin. This was what they had fought for, lost friends and families for, endured pain and fear for: peace at last. Life could resume its natural course and there would be nothing in front of them but the quietude of everyday existence and James couldn't be gladder.

 _Turn the doorknob_ , his brain said. _Greet the guest. Who knows—maybe it's Moony coming for a quick visit_.

But his instincts told him that whoever behind the door would not bring happy news.

He swallowed and opened the door.

The eyes—they were the most noticeable. Wide and frantic in panic. Huffs of breath clouded the air between of them and the flush in her cheeks contrasted oddly with the paleness of her skin. James tried to remember. Had she always been this pale? He didn't think so. The dark eyes flashed almost maniacally and even James had to step backward from the force despite it coming from a familiar face.

"I'll skip the pleasantries," she said. " _Where is he_?"

* * *

 _One of these days I'll stop waking up like this._

The sense of déjà vu was the first thing that hit him like a sledgehammer. Regulus felt his eyeball move in their sockets, even though he couldn't even keep one eye open. He began to automatically assess the parts of his body. Feelings of the toes—check. Head—currently thinking, so check. Any restraints? None that he could gather.

There was a voice, unfamiliar. Male. Deep, low. He spoke in a language that he couldn't understand. He frowned. The last time he checked, he was in Little Hangleton, wasn't he? Had he been transported to a foreign country? Maybe he did die—maybe in afterlife people spoke a different language. That was going to be a hassle. But Regulus supposed that he did have eternity to learn the language—an intellectual exercise, if nothing else. He was fond of those things, wasn't he? Eternity of intellectual exercise and contemplation, free from the bounds of Voldemort or Horcruxes—

A woman responded in a similar tone. The same language. For some reason her voice sounded familiar. But Regulus couldn't place his finger on the identity…

A third voice interrupted them, obviously impatient. He spoke English—that much Regulus could gather from the oscillations in tone—but he couldn't tell exactly what was being said. Something scratched the floor. Chair, maybe. Footsteps ensued.

Regulus tried to move his head to indicate that he could hear them, but nothing came out of the effort. He heard someone approach near him—the heavy footfall, the faint scent of cologne, huff of normal breathing. Slowly he cracked open one eye.

"You _idiot_ ," Sirius said.

Despite everything that made Regulus grin—faintly. He didn't really have the energy.

"I'm alive," he croaked.

"Clearly," Sirius snapped, apparently still annoyed, but Regulus could tell that the tension in his shoulders had left the body since he opened his eyes. "What the bloody hell were you thinking?"

"Where am I?" Regulus asked instead of answering, trying to look around. He slowly supported his weight on his forearms, drawing them back and pushing against the mattress. His vision spun for a second before coming into focus again. Regulus flexed his facial muscles tentatively. Still working.

"My flat, obviously," Sirius retorted. "Where else?"

"How did I get here? Who—" Regulus paused, looking around. "Who were those people?"

Sirius's left eyebrow twitched. A telltale sign. Regulus would have almost rolled his eyes had it not been for the fact that he was exhausted and certainly in no state mock others. "What people?"

"The people who were just in the room."

"Oh, them." Sirius's left eyebrow twitched again. "Lily and James. I called Lily. No offense, but you look horrible right now."

"They were speaking in a foreign language."

"So? They're a couple. Each couple speak their own language. Absolutely disgusting, I know."

"They weren't Lily and James Potter."

"Why the bloody hell do you have to be—" Sirius paused and took a deep breath. And then another one. And then still another one. " _So bloody annoying_?"

"Double positive," Regulus remarked tiredly, leaning against the bedframe. In his half-delirious, medicated state—for he saw from the remnants on his bedside table that he was medicated—he thought he'd heard the voice. Her voice. He was probably wrong.

Meanwhile Sirius frowned at his comment. "A what?" he asked.

"A double positive," Regulus said. "You used 'bloody' twice in a same sentence. I was wondering if the two bloodies canceled out each other or if they multiplied. You know, two times two equals for, and all that."

Sirius gave him an odd look. "Remind me to ask her what she gave you," he said. "I'll have to buy a cauldronfull."

"Her being Lily Potter, you mean?"

"Obviously," Sirius snapped, his previous mood returning.

Regulus raised both his hands in mock surrender. "Just confirming," he said. Unfortunately, the motion required him to move the muscles around his shoulders and chest and the irritation caused him to begin coughing violently.

"Damn it," Sirius swore, and began to stumble through the vials on the bedside table one by one. "Which one is it?"

"Will be—fine—soon." Regulus managed to say between his coughs. When he uncovered his mouth he discovered blood on his palm. "Or not," he conceded.

"Here," Sirius said, handing him a towel and a glass of water. "I'll have to ask again. He said a bunch of things, but with the accent and all—" Sirius paused, a deer-in-front-of-the-headlight look on his face. Regulus debated; he could ask Sirius who the people were, but he was obviously unwilling to talk. And to be most frank—he was _safe_. They were both safe, safe and together at Sirius's home, and Regulus couldn't think of anything better in the world. So he would let this go. Regulus wiped his hand extra carefully with the towel, pretending to be absorbed in the act. Sirius turned toward the table again, where now a dozen of vials were scattered haphazardly on the surface.

"Damn it," Sirius swore again, looking at the mess. Regulus sighed.

"The one on the far left edge—the light blue one—is a pain reliever. The one in the round bottle by its right is a tonic—for what, I'll have to smell it," he said, not fully succeeding in his attempt to suppress the didactic tone. "Others I'll have to look more closely—the light's a bit dim in this room."

Sirius was staring at him, his mouth half-open. Regulus resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"It's not as if you didn't know," he instead said in an even tone. "Slughorn was fond of me for a reason, after all."

"I thought all the m'boy's and 'excellent work' was for a show," Sirius said.

Regulus cocked his head to one side. "I'm sure they were."

Sirius still looked surprised. Regulus now began to feel more alert despite the sleep inducer flowing through his veins.

"Year one, chapter twelve, color and material," Regulus recited matter-of-factly. "The color of the potion is directly linked to the various interplays and interactions between ingredients within a—"

"Yeah, yeah, Bull's law, I know," Sirius muttered, the former expression wiped clean from his face. "I do work at Zonko's, you know."

Regulus raised his eyebrow. "With _your_ N.E.W.T.s?"

Sirius now looked genuinely irritated. "Remind me never to save you again."

"Will do," Regulus answered cheerily. "I probably won't be alive to remind you, though."

Sirius scowled, but managed to refrain from saying anything harsher than a _bloody git_ that he muttered under his breath. "You clearly need more sleeping potion," he said aloud instead, reaching out for one of the bigger vials. "Apparently he gave you a bunch of counterpotions, and you need to sleep it off."

Regulus frowned. "Counterpotions?"

Sirius's mouth thinned into a straight line and Regulus was reminded again of their mother. As much as Sirius would have liked to deny it—and he did deny it, vociferously, repeatedly, in vain—Sirius was a male copy of Walburga Black. Their expressions. Their language. Their temperament. Sirius tried everything to not be his mother, and Regulus knew that even his personality in part was constructed by Sirius himself; when he was younger, for instance, Sirius wasn't so outgoing as he was now. The eldest son had adopted the personality to spite his mother. But Sirius was his mother, whether he liked it or not. They were easily angered, quick to react. And the expression that Regulus now saw on his brother's face was the one he'd seen countless times on his mother's face: it was an expression of barely suppressed anger. Regulus wondered if he should reach for his wand on the bedside table or not.

"You know, we did Merkel's test on you," Sirius said lightly. Regulus didn't believe his tone.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," Sirius said, his tone still light. "You know what the results were?"

"Please do tell."

"Five hundred oungots," Sirius said, his voice dangerously teetering toward a growl. "Five. _Bloody_. Hundred. _Do you know what that means_?"

Regulus tried not to let his surprise show. Merkel's test was designed to calculate the amount of toxicity in one's body caused by Dark Magic. He knew he was in a bad shape, and if Voldemort had created them, the Inferi must have been more powerful than normal. But _five hundred_? "Two hundred is considered fatal," Regulus said faintly, quoting from a textbook that he'd read so far ago. "I should be dead by now."

"'I should be dead by now,' he says!" Sirius began to shout. "'I don't need to see a Healer,' he said. 'I'm perfectly fine'—you're obviously not fine, Reg!" The vein on his forehead began to thicken and his ears began to turn red. Regulus swallowed.

"You know why I said that I couldn't see a Healer," he said quietly, but knew from experience that logic wouldn't convince Sirius now.

"So you should just _die_? Is that it?"

"I thought I was supposed to be a patient," Regulus attempted to joke. "Sleep and rest and all."

Sirius was fuming. "Oh, you'll rest, all right," he said. "I'll personally see to it that you don't get out of this house for at least a week."

Regulus raised his eyebrows. "Are you _confining_ me, Sirius? You're starting to sound dangerously like our mother."

"Yes, well, bloody gits like you need confinement," Sirius snapped. "Now drink your potion and go to sleep."

Regulus felt a wave of uncomfortable emotion creep up slowly from his heart to his eyes and repressed it for the hundredth time that evening. Gratitude? Perhaps—yes, gratitude that Sirius hadn't abandoned him in the old shack to die alone. Gratitude that he came back. Gratitude that, despite everything, he was by his bedside, making his little brother take potions just like he used to when they were young. Regulus had always insisted stubbornly that he didn't have a cold and that he didn't have a fever and even ordered Kreacher not to bring him any potions, wishing instead to fight it off himself. And Sirius would always tell him not to be stupid, so stubborn, his coughs woke up the rest of the house, so take the stupid potion already…

He reached out with his left hand to take the cup that Sirius held out for him and grabbed it weakly. A small clank rang inside the glass cup as something hit against its delicate surface.

Regulus looked down on his hand, frowning. What he found made his grip on the glass instantly tighten.

"Sirius," he said quietly, his eyes never leaving the glass.

"What now?" Sirius asked exasperatedly.

"She was here, wasn't she?"

" _Who_ was here?"

"You know who I'm talking about," Regulus said evenly, but he was feeling anything but. "Did you call her?"

Sirius didn't say anything. Regulus didn't look up at him, just fixed his eyes on the glass, at the ripples on the surface of the liquid as his hands trembled imperceptibly.

"Yeah, I called her," Sirius finally said. "At Diagon Alley. She found me at James's after I… after we split up. We tracked you down to Little Hangleton." He paused. "I'm not going to apologize for that, Regulus."

"I wasn't going to ask you to."

"If today proved anything, it's that you need some help with this quest. _We_ need help with this quest."

"I know."

"Reg—"

"How is she?" his throat felt drier than Sahara Desert. His head screamed at him to stop this instant and drink the damned potion and go to sleep. _Bad idea, Regulus. Bad idea._

"Reg—"

"You were the one who saw her, not me," Regulus said drily. "I was unconscious, remember?" Unconscious and helpless wasn't the way he'd imagined that they'd meet, if they ever met again. But unfortunately that was how life had wanted things to happen between them. The damned life.

"I—she's doing fine." Sirius sighed, obviously displeased at his question. "She's doing fine, really."

"Happy?"

"I don't know. It's not like we write letters to each other every day."

"There was a man with her—who was he?"

Sirius didn't answer. The silence was enough of an answer.

"Goodnight, Sirius."

"Reg—" Sirius began to say something, but Regulus cut him off by downing the concoction in one large gulp. It burned and froze on its way down. He leaned against the pillows at the head of the bed, closing his eyes. He suddenly felt very tired.

"Goodnight," Sirius murmured after watching him for a while. Regulus heard rather than saw his brother turn off the lamplight

"Sirius?"

The footsteps stopped.

"What?"

"Thanks," Regulus said, his eyes still closed. "For everything. I don't think I've thanked you yet."

A small paused was ensued.

"Don't be a git and go to sleep," Sirius muttered, a faint tone of embarrassment in his voice. "Bloody hell," he muttered as he went out. The door shut softly behind him. Regulus opened his eyes slowly.

His decrepit right hand lay over his left hand, and with his right thumb he stroked the Black signet on his ring. The ring that he hadn't seen over in a year.

 _It's a lovely summer evening. I do hope you enjoy it._

It had been a mistake to send her that ring. He'd regretted it a thousand times and more. It had been a mistake. A foolish mistake.

 _Love,_

 _Regulus._

He'd never imagined that she would be able to give the ring back to him. He'd never imagined that he would survive the cave at all. But here he was, more than a year later, and she'd given it back to him, given it back, given it back…

The last image before his mind drifted off to the subconscious recess of his brain was that autumn evening, when he'd decided never to open his eyes again.

* * *

Sirius was faithful to his words and managed to keep his reluctant younger brother tied to the bed—sometimes quite literally—for the following few weeks. Oh, little Reggie had protested—vociferously, violently, stubbornly, sometimes snidely, making comments on Sirius's choice of color in pajamas, his cooking skills, his organizational system, his job, his intelligence, his knowledge in _real estate_ , of all things—and Sirius couldn't fathom how he could have ever forgotten how bloody _annoying_ Reg could be. So as a return for his troubles Sirius had taken away his wand and gave him a few pounds to go grocery shopping instead. The look on Regulus's look had been priceless.

"Nice to have you in again," Bertie from the accessory division said to him as they made their way out of the Zonko headquarter.

Sirius grinned. "It's nice to be back," he said, unconsciously skipping on the snow-lain pavement.

"You've been in a good mood lately," Bertie said, giving him a knowing look. "Anyone special I should know about?"

Sirius was about to respond in a vague affirmative when he caught the drift. "What? _What_? No, no, definitely not." Even the association of that little annoying bugger with "anyone special" made his skin crawl. "Ugh," he shivered, shaking his head like a wet dog. Next to him Bertie laughed.

"No need to be so defensive," he said. "I get it. Young people these days like to keep it secret. But when a young man takes a leave of absence for a few months, you got to wonder, you know?"

"Bertie, mate— _it's nothing like that. Believe me_." Sirius stopped walking and even looked into Bertie's eyes for emphasis.

Bertie shrugged with the nonchalance of a sixty year old man. "All right then. If you insist. But Sabrina told me that Lucy told her that Nicole told her that one of her co-workers was _awfully_ disappointed."

Sirius gave him a strange look. "You are an odd old man," he said.

"Well, when that co-worker's your daughter..." Bertie trailed off succinctly. Sirius shook his head.

"Merlin, sorry, Bertie," he said, trying to go for his rueful grin. "Jennifer. I remember. It's just—I'm trying to get back in touch with people I haven't seen in a while, you know, with the war and all that. I've been a bit preoccupied."

Bertie nodded sympathetically. "I understand. But you can't go on forever living in the past, you know? Sometimes you need to think about the future." Bertie patted Sirius on the shoulder. "I'll tell Jennifer you're available this Friday evening, okay?" Without waiting for a further answer Bertie walked down a few blocks before Disapparating.

"You're an odd old man!" Sirius shouted after him, but he was already gone.

"Bloody hell," he swore for no particular reason. Wait until Reg hears about _this_.

He stopped in his tracks.

Until _Reg_ hears about this?

Sirius's hand automatically reached for his head, as if he wanted to check it physically for concussion. Since when did he tell Reg anything? Regulus had never been the talking sort, and he was just downright boring when it came to birds. Especially bonny birds. Sirius frowned. He didn't think they'd actually ever talked about girls. Oh, he'd made comments in passing, more or less lewd ones, and Regulus had given him stony looks every time that happened, apparently refusing to sink to his level. And then Sirius left home and never talked to him again.

But tell Reg about this? It had always been James. Whenever he got a detention, or a small praise from McGonagall, or Merlin forbid found an interesting passage in a textbook, it had _always_ been James. Even after he got married, Sirius would—

No, things had changed when James finally succeeded in approaching Lily Evan's vicinity without getting his hair burned off.

Suddenly it was "Tell Lily about this" for James. Every detail of the Quidditch practice to the newest ranking of the British Quidditch league to _everything_. Sirius had told himself that it was only natural. He couldn't understand why James would feel compelled to even talk to a girl about Chudley Cannon's dismal record for the past hundred years, but Lily had been surprisingly interested in the subject matter and Sirius told himself that that side of romance was something that he would never come to understand. Didn't care to understand it, in fact. It had been amusing (and rather pitiful) to watch James pursue Lily with all his heart and he supposed that it was time that James got what he wanted and Sirius continued the way he was. A freethinking rebel.

"Oi, Reg, guess what I heard at work today," Sirius found himself saying as he closed the apartment door behind him.

"I don't particularly care to," the little git drawled. Sirius rolled his eyes. Definitely James over Reg. Definitely.

"Guess, or I'll never give you your wand back."

"You mean the wand you hid in the bathroom closet?" When Sirius looked at him in surprise, Regulus snorted in a manner that would have had Mrs. Black scandalized. "It's not as if we don't live together, Sirius."

"If you knew where it was, why didn't you get it, then?" Sirius asked challengingly.

Regulus threw him a dirty look. "You put Stinging Hex on it, you prat."

Sirius smiled, self-satisfied. "Yes, I did do that, didn't I?" he gloated. "So take a guess or I'll never take off the hex."

Regulus sighed, and it was only then that Sirius realized that Regulus was again in the kitchen, cooking. It had thrown him off at first, seeing Regulus _cook_ , of all things, but it was as if his mind had almost become accustomed to this. This image of Regulus in the kitchen. The image of coming home and finding someone in there. Merlin, what a bloody annoying vision. Sirius shook his head to put his thoughts back in their proper places.

"Did you discover the formula for that rash ointment?"

"Er, no, not yet."

"Got yelled at by that Tubman?"

"Good one, but not today."

"Got yelled at by Davenport, then."

"No."

"Spilled Bubbling Pus all over yourself?"

" _No_."

"It's not a shameful thing to have really bad coordination, Sirius—"

"Shut up, it was just that one time at Aunt Lucretia's dinner party. I was seven, for Merin's sake."

"Well, then, I'm out of guesses," Regulus drawled. "And I seem to recall that you were _nine_ , not seven."

"Never mind," Sirius snapped, but there was no malice in his voice. "What are you even doing?"

Regulus looked back at him like he had asked the stupidest question. That bugger. "Making Shepherd's pie," he said.

"Huh," Sirius said. Shepherd's pie was Sirius's favorite dish, not Reg's. Perhaps his taste has changed since Hogwarts. Just look at James—he actually ate his vegetables now.

"I can't do this forever, you know," Regulus said, going back to his pan. "I've got to—"

"Hunt Horcruxes, yeah, yeah, you've said it about a million times, Reg. Tell me that when your right hand can actually hold a glass."

"It's gotten better, really," Regulus insisted, holding out his right hand. Sirius had given him several potions and a tin of ointment to him the morning after their return from Little Hangleton, remaining silent on where he'd got it from—Regulus could probably tell without him saying everything—and Reg had wordlessly accepted it. Sirius didn't know the exact nature of the potions, but he assumed it was some sort of a regenerative potion; the palm of Regulus's right hand almost looked smooth and pink and healthy. Magic that Sirius hadn't seen before, but perhaps Lily might know…

"Almost healed," Regulus said, flexing his fingers. "They even move properly."

"The Merkel test—"

"I took another measurement this afternoon, it's below one-fifty," Regulus huffed impatiently.

"That's still above a hundred," Sirius said, flinging his body onto the couch and flicking his wand at the radio. "Told you: not going out until it's below the normal level."

"I can't wait that long."

"It's just another few days."

"For Merlin's sake—" Regulus closed his mouth tightly and just stood there, glaring into the floorboards. If Sirius hadn't been so intent on saying no to every word Regulus was saying, he might have found the expression comical. It was the exact same look Reg had whenever he wanted another chocolate frog and couldn't get one as a child.

"You don't tell me where the ring is, you won't let me have my wand—"

"Technically, it's _my_ wand. And I can't tell you where the ring is because she took it."

Regulus looked up at him sharply. "What?" he said quietly.

"She took it. For safekeeping. And to take off the charms." Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Is there something wrong?"

" _You knew what it was and you let her take it with her_?"

"Reg, she's a trained professional! Compared to either of us, yeah, I let her take it. Blimey, it was _you_ who almost died."

"That doesn't mean—" Regulus again looked down, his mouth drawn tight into a straight line, looking again determinedly at the floorboards. Sirius slowly sat up and lowered the volume of the radio.

"Reg, I thought we agreed that we needed outside help."

Regulus let out a sharp breath. "We did."

"She's someone we can rely on."

Regulus didn't answer.

"Reg—"

"Maybe _you_ can rely on her," Regulus said quietly. " _You_ haven't done anything wrong. But she won't have anything to do with me."

"You don't know that—"

"Believe me, I do." His little brother looked up and looked squarely into Sirius' face. "She won't."

Sirius stared back at him, surprised. He knew they had a falling out—it was sometime during sixth year, he recalled—but he never knew why. To be honest he made a point of ignoring Regulus at Hogwarts—the entire school was already asking enough questions about the estranged brothers for both of them—but he remembered at one point seeing them sitting separately in the Great Hall.

When he was inducted into the Order it made a little bit more sense; her mother had been a member of the Order. It certainly could not have bode well to have a family member in the Order of Phoenix and a Death Eater boyfriend. He'd thought about asking her several times, but there had never been a good timing. They were too busy trying to stay alive.

"You're not worried about putting her in danger," Sirius said slowly. "You're worried that she won't talk to you."

Regulus looked away but didn't say anything.

"Reg—"

" _I know it's selfish_ ," the words came out so unexpectedly that Sirius felt his eyebrows raise themselves even without his command. Fortunately, Regulus didn't seem to have noticed—a rare happening—and he kept on talking as though someone had opened a floodgate inside his heart and he couldn't stop the deluge that had been bottled up for so many years.

"I know it's selfish, and cowardly, and really just despicable, but—no, I'm not worried about putting her in danger. She can take care of herself. I know she can take care of herself. I just—" he stopped abruptly, his brows knit together in a horribly lost way.

"You want to see her," Sirius said quietly. Regulus didn't answer.

"Why didn't you tell me? I could have contacted her before—"

"Look at me," Regulus waved his useless right hand in front of him impatiently.

"I am looking at you."

"How could I ever convince her when I'm like this? Sirius, you said it yourself, I look _horrible_. And even if I wasn't being vain, I have absolutely nothing to offer her— _nothing_ , Sirius. I can't offer her security or comfort or even stability. I don't have any money. If a word gets out that I'm still alive, I would be become one of the most wanted fugitives in the wizarding community. And everything I've done—oh, Merlin..." Regulus slowly sank onto the floor, and Sirius stood up in alarm. Regulus had curled up into a ball, his face buried in his hands, as though he couldn't bear to face the world in front of him. Sirius crouched awkwardly next to him.

"Sorry," Regulus said, his voice muffled through his hands. "This isn't your problem."

"It's fine," Sirius said quickly.

"I blame the cyan potion. You know, some potioneers think boomslang tends to make people more prone to outbursts of—"

"Reg," Sirius said firmly. "You don't have to cover things up by talking about… potions and stuff."

Regulus didn't say anything. Sirius debated. He could drop the matter; he'd seen more emotion on Regulus's face in the past five minutes than he had in the past twenty-two years. And Merlin knew whatever was going inside that little git's head. When they were younger and always fighting Sirius used to accuse him of being an automaton—unfeeling, unthinking, simply devoted to one cause, this insane, useless family. Regulus had always retorted that Sirius didn't know anything, and Sirius had always said that he knew enough, he'd seen enough. Sirius thought that he was in the right. And quite frankly, the opinion didn't change much even after he'd found Reg in Peter's cottage by seaside. How anyone could survive an Inferi attack but still fail to understand a funny knock-knock joke, Sirius couldn't fathom.

Perhaps he'd been inattentive all along. Perhaps the tiniest slips of seconds during their many arguments when he thought he saw hurt in his little brother's eyes hadn't been just his imagination…

"You never told me what happened between you and Alex," Sirius said tentatively.

"'Course not, you would have made fun of it in front of the entire castle."

Sirius had to admit that he couldn't deny this accusation. "I meant the part where you two broke up."

"Nothing to talk about."

"Reg, I spent the summer with her at the Potters. She didn't mention your name _once_ all summer and I could tell that she was thinking about you every second." Not that he'd found it particularly tasteful at the age of sixteen. When James had told him at the end of the fifth year that his parents had agreed to help out a member of the Order whose child needed a place to stay (the said member was off on a mission across Europe), Sirius had been excited; he'd heard of the Order, naturally, and even at the age of sixteen both James and Sirius were convinced that they would join the organization as soon as they came of age. Surely, knowing a child of an actual Order member could only increase their chances of joining. And then it turned out that the person was actually the girlfriend of his git of a little brother.

He didn't know much about her personally, nor did he need to. She had a bad sense to be Sorted into Slytherin and then even worse sense to befriend his little brother. And then go on to date him. What anyone could see in that unfeeling git had been beyond Sirius's comprehension. So whenever she got a melancholic look in her eyes as she stared off into distance—the same look that James sometimes wore when he thought Lily wasn't looking—he scoffed.

"Right," Regulus said drily. "The summer when I pledged to join the ranks. Can you imagine? Even then I had every intention of betraying her."

Sirius's brows knit together. "Wait, that summer?"

Regulus looked dully back at him. "Yes, that summer."

"You were what, sixteen?"

"Well, it was August, so yes."

Sirius's eyes widened. " _You took the pledge when you were sixteen_?" the question came out like a loud screech. Sirius didn't care. Regulus merely raised his eyebrows tiredly.

"Ancient history, Sirius."

"How come I never heard about this?" Sirius seethed. Yes, he realized eventually as he worked for the Order that Regulus was a Death Eater—one of the enemies. He hadn't been surprised at the happening, although he would have been lying if he said that the event didn't shake him at all. He told himself over and over again that it had been coming all along; Regulus, the little git he was, was going to dutifully listen to their parents and become a Death Eater. But at _sixteen_? He himself had run away at sixteen, but he had a sense to go to the Potters instead of wandering the streets. Sirius tried to recall what he had been like when he was sixteen. Rash, bold. Energetic. Frustrated, constantly angry with the world and desperately trying to find something that would bring him happiness. Perhaps it was the best and the worst time to make a life-changing decision. But it was far too early. A mere child…

"You ran away from house, Sirius," Regulus said tonelessly. "It was no longer your business."

"How was _this_ none of my business?" Sirius yelled. "You became a Death Eater. Didn't you ever think about how dangerous it wa—"

"If I recall correctly, and I seem to, you told me 'never to speak to you again.'" Regulus's voice was so uncharacteristically weak that even Sirius couldn't argue back. "I didn't think that you would take kindly to me approaching you to talk about this." He leaned against the counter table, his eyes closing again. Sirius couldn't tell if he was just exhausted—he'd learned to pick up the signs the past few weeks on whenever Regulus stopped in middle of his tracks just to catch his breath—or drained. Neither option quelled his conscience. How could he never even noticed that there was something wrong with Regulus during Hogwarts? How could he never have paid attention? How could he—

"I think the pie's burning," Regulus said casually, his eyes still closed. "I don't suppose you're up for takeaway food?"

"I don't mind," Sirius said automatically. "Pizza?" Regulus shrugged.

"Reg, about Alex—"

"Call her, contact her, I don't care."

"She's the best option we've got."

"So call her."

"I'm not sure if you'll be okay with that—"

"It was your idea to begin with."

"Right, but I still don't know what happened—"

"I'm tired, Sirius," Regulus interrupted him. "Do we have to talk about this _now_?" Apparently, any flood of emotion that had managed to seep through the cracks was all that Regulus was going to allow for the day. He opened his eyes, and Sirius could see that any signs of weakness that he had shown previously were gone.

"No," Sirius said. "We don't have to talk about this now." He stood up awkwardly and looked at no particular spot on the floor, unable to look at his little brother. "I think I'll go out to buy something—won't take long." Without waiting for an answer Sirius quickly walked out of the kitchen, grabbing the first coat he saw hanging on the wall on his way out.

He had a bit to think about.

* * *

Regulus wondered if he should try to move. The pie was burning, and smoke was beginning to fill the kitchen; if he left it alone any further it would alarm the neighbors. Sighing, he dragged his body upward before turning off the stove. There.

He trudged slowly toward to the nearest windows and opened them. The chill winter air were like icicles against his face. He breathed in deeply and felt his lungs shrink against the coldness. He blew out his breath and watched it fog his vision momentarily before scattering into the outside air. The streets were empty; it was already dark. Sirius was walking briskly to the northwest corner, his shoulders huddled against the coldness. The cold air shrunk his insides again.

He'd said it. One of many things that he promised to never say out loud. Regulus wasn't sure if he trusted Sirius's reaction. His brother was known for being unpredictable. He went over what Sirius said. So he hadn't known that Regulus became a Death Eater at sixteen. Regulus supposed that this wasn't surprising; even he didn't know when other Death Eaters had joined the ranks exactly. They rarely met outside the regular meetings and during occasions when the Dark Lord summoned them—Regulus had been fastidious about not furthering the relationship beyond "the Cause"—and it was difficult to tell exactly when someone became a member. They were just there.

So she'd thought about him during that summer. It was also nothing new. They'd corresponded during that summer although, of course, he left out the key information about his new rank within the league. She had always been ambivalent about expressing her views on Voldemort and his actions, but Regulus knew her well enough to know that she would disapprove of him joining the ranks. Especially in the light of what happened with her mother.

Sophia Wilson—Alex's mother—had never liked him. Regulus knew that. But that did not mean that it gave him pleasure when he found out, just as he became a Death Eater, that she was in fact an Order member and, more importantly, a recently captured Order member held captive beneath his own house. He knew why Death Eaters sometimes went down the cellar and didn't come out for a while, sometimes hours, and that it had nothing to do with interrogation or anything regarding "the Cause." They were just taking sick pleasure at taking advantage of the disarmed. Regulus excused himself by saying that he didn't know what was going on exactly down there—he didn't see it—but he knew that he didn't need to see it to know. And the fact that he could compromise so much in so little time—it had not been a fortnight since he'd joined—sickened him. Had he been always so unresolved, without will or determination—just like Sirius always said? Was it true? Alex, meanwhile, was convinced all the while that her mother was simply on a faraway mission—he assumed that no other member of the Order bothered to tell her that her mother was in fact missing. She mentioned in passing, every once in a while, in their correspondence that her letters to her mother came back unopened, and that it had been months since she'd last heard from her, and Regulus offered her words of false comfort, all the while knowing that she was probably never going to see her mother again.

And then hell broke loose on Valentine's day.

Regulus shook his head. He had been right not to tell Sirius, who, if he knew, would only confirm what Regulus didn't want to admit to himself: he didn't deserve her. Not then, and certainly not now after five years, five years filled with nothing but mistakes after mistakes after mistakes. Sirius had implied that she was seeing someone—that was good. That was good…

"Oi, it's freezing in here," Sirius's voice caught him by surprise. When had he come back?

"The smoke was beginning to fill the flat," Regulus said.

"Well, coldness has filled the room. Close the windows." Regulus now felt tingling numbness at the tip of his noes and did what Sirius asked without further comment. He hadn't noticed that his fingers had gone red with cold. Sirius, meanwhile, had managed to set up dinner by placing the pizza box on the table and spreading out a handful of napkins. Regulus for once didn't talk about getting a plate.

"So," Sirius said, taking a large bite out of his second slice, "Do you remember when I asked you 'guess what?'?"

That had not been what Regulus was expecting.

"Yes," Regulus said. "You still haven't given me my wand back."

Sirius waved his hand carelessly, as though it was some minute detail. "A co-worker set me up on a date with his daughter. And it's been a while since you've been in… well, society. I was thinking maybe you wanted to join us. I think I could ask her to bring a friend…"

Regulus was convinced that he misheard something.

"Are you asking me," he said slowly, "if I want to go out on a _date_?"

"It's what people do, Reg. Admittedly, I don't _date_ much, but for my little brother I might—"

"Thank you for your consideration," Regulus said drily. "But I'll pass."

"But—"

"Who will you even introduce me as? Your long-lost cousin Reginald?" Regulus would have rolled his eyes but knew that Sirius was extending a gesture in his own misinformed way. "No thanks, Sirius. Enjoy the date though."

"It's Friday night, Reginald! You have to do _something_."

Regulus chewed the pizza thoughtfully, wondering what the best way was to say what he was about to say.

"I'm going to talk to Kreacher, Sirius."

Sirius frowned in confusion. "Who?"

"Kreacher. Our house elf. Surely you haven't forgotten everything about Grimmauld Place."

"Why would you even want to talk to that old—" Sirius faltered briefly under Regulus's raise eyebrow. "… creature?" he asked.

"I gave him the locket, as you know. I have to check with him if he managed to destroy it—I doubt it, but I wondered if house elf magic worked differently than ours in this respect as well. It also wouldn't be bad to have some access to the resources within that house."

Sirius sighed. "Can't you ever talk about something other than Horcruxes?"

 _No_ , Regulus replied in side his head. _It's the only reason why I'm still living right now._ But he decided not put things in a more pacifying way. "I've rested enough. The rate of my recovery suggests that I should be able to go about in less than a week. I can't stay here and be babysat, Sirius."

Sirius sighed. "What then? So we talk to that miserable bat. What are you going to do then—go off on another hunt?"

"I'm not sure," Regulus admitted. "I feel like I'm missing something. Something Bella once mentioned. I've been trying to remember it—I think it was around Christmas a few years ago, when Bella said something about a gift—I can't think," he sighed. "The best thing I can think of is to gather what we have together and to find out more about them. I have a vague guess what others may look like, but it'll take some time for me to actually go about and enquire about them. You've got to give me the wand back, Sirius."

Sirius muttered something under his breath.

"What?"

"I said, can't you just—take it easy for once in your lifetime? You learned to write when you were _four_ , Reg. Believe me, I was there. I saw it. Can't you—just go at your own pace for once and—I don't know. Be happy?" Sirius looked at him earnestly and Regulus got a feeling that he had been thinking about this a while—or perhaps he'd thought of it during his little trip to the pizza place. He cleared his throat and looked away.

"When this is all over," Regulus lied, "I'll think about it. Until then, we have to put an end to this, Sirius. Once and for all."


	6. January 21st, 1982

A/N: Hi hello! It's been a while since I updated this particular story, but I give my full assurance that I haven't abandoned it (yet?)! I don't know how fast I'll update, seeing as there are several details that needs to be hammered out about Regulus and Sirius' past, and I've been doing some revisions on the past chapters as well as The Soldier went on. But anyway, enjoy!

* * *

He was surrounded by complete darkness.

Only his breath was audible to him. Time itself seemed to have stopped in the dark field, and even the stars seemed to have abandoned the sky in dismay. Life could not exist there. Not even his own.

Next to him someone hissed, and Regulus knew that signal very well. He crouched to the ground and kept his eyes open and alert despite the darkness.

A jet of light flashed on his right side and there was pandemonium.

The person who had gave the signal fell to the ground with a dull thud. Shouts in the distance rang through the entire field, filling the otherwise empty night. Regulus stood his ground and sniffed the air the way the war taught him, his back alert, his gaze unwavering. A spell missed him by inches from his right side and Regulus adroitly retaliated. Someone fell not far from him but the only sound he could hear was the pulse drumming in his ears. He could feel nothing but alertness. Alertness and attention. But something was approaching him, he could sense it, and Regulus tried to decide what the best course of action would be, to acknowledge the surprise attack or to pretend he didn't notice anything until the last second. But the thing that was creeping up toward him approached closer and closer until he could feel it. He could feel the enemy in the same air he was breathing in, crawling up his skin, reaching his back, his shoulders—

Regulus Black woke up, drenched in sweat for the thousandth time.

His breath was heavy and his chest heaved with each effort to draw his breath in. His left wrist throbbed painfully, and his legs felt like they were made out of lead. The clock on his bedside table told him that it was barely five. Regulus sunk back into the pillow, the familiar smell of sweat and oddly bitter, and closed his eyes in exhaustion.

The only thing that he hated more than life was sleep.

At least, during the day, he could somehow, through sheer will-power, keep his thoughts in check. During the day, unbidden memories were promptly suppressed, and whatever pained him from his past lingered only momentarily before receding into the dark recess of his mind. During the day, he could bare it, bare what he'd done, with the wish to see everything righted and changed. During the day. But nights were a different matter altogether.

His heart drummed painfully in his chest and Regulus heaved with difficulty. Each breath burned on its way to his lungs. The muscles around his ribs constricted in the most agonizing way. He lay like this until he could find enough bearing to pull himself up.

The first rays of light were creeping their way through the thick window.

* * *

One would expect that, after the death of Voldemort, the situation at the Auror office would be calmer.

It seemed, however, that the opposite was true. Immediately after the death the main focus was to capture as many runaway and disguised Death Eaters as possible, put them in temporary prison, and station wards to make sure that no one escaped. As there were many Death Eaters in Britain and abroad, this took considerable amount of time and resources—all the resources in the Auror department. Trials and evidence against these war criminals, unfortunately, were secondary to identifying and capturing them. But now, it was a massive amount of paper work, sleuthing, and countless hours dealing with sophisticated advocates that these filthy rich pureblood sons of bitches decided to hire.

James banged his fist on his desk in frustration.

It wasn't that he was incapable of reading, as Lily sometimes implied in her teasings. It wasn't that he couldn't understand the legal jargon. It wasn't even that he was under too much stress—damn it, the war was over. Any stress he was under didn't compare to the constant threat that his family was in danger.

No, what prevented him from doing his job was his memory of Sirius.

 _There was the body—and there was the mind as well_. What did Padfoot even mean by that?

He understood Padfoot's need to find Regulus' body. Yes, the Black brothers had a rocky relationship—James got a personal front row seat to some of their more famous rows—but he was still Sirius' brother and Sirius, despite everything, had a warm and affectionate heart. He would never stop caring for Regulus completely. And with the war over, Sirius needed closure for the losses that he received. They all did.

But Sirius wasn't himself when he came back after three months of searching.

No, that wasn't it. Sirius was—his adolescent self. Irritable, moody, completely overreacting to every single comment that concerned his brother. Sometimes incoherent in his excitement.

 _There was the mind as well._

James' eyes widened. There was only one person that could rile Sirius up so badly in so short a time. His little brother. But Regulus Black, the Death Eater, was dead. He couldn't be.

James stood up. He had to pay Sirius a little visit.

* * *

"Why are you still here?" Regulus asked Sirius. Sirius turned around from the counter, not having heard Regulus approach the kitchen.

"You're up early," Sirius commented. Contrary to everyone's expectations, it was Sirius who'd always been the morning person, up before the entire castle, while Regulus always forced himself out of the bed. Regulus rubbed his eyes but didn't correct Sirius. He'd been up for the past three hours.

"Why aren't you at work?" he rephrased the question instead. Sirius shrugged.

"I'm taking a leave of absence."

"Again?" Regulus said incredulously. "Doesn't Zonko's have some policy against unmotivated employees?"

"Probably," Sirius said. "But they were so impressed with my reputation at Hogwarts, they hired me on the spot… obviously they're not going to lose the golden boy." Regulus scoffed but decided to let the matter drop. If Sirius and his gang charged the entire castle for each and every spectacle and prank they pulled, they would've already made a fortune comparable to the entire Zonko's company.

"I might've also dropped hints that the rival company's been trying to scout me," Sirius continued lightly. "It's all about the mind game, brother."

"I've no doubt," Regulus said, hunching tiredly over his coffee.

"So," Sirius said, facing him squarely. Regulus barely raised his eyes.

"Yes?"

"Kreacher."

"Yup."

"Today?"

"Yup."

"But—"

"No."

"Fine."

A few seconds followed.

" _But_ —"

" _Today_."

"Fine." This was followed by a series of unintelligible words that Regulus was certain contained more profanity than the commentary for England-Ireland Quidditch game, but there wasn't enough space in Regulus' tense mind to accommodate Sirius' every grumble.

"I need clothes," Regulus said instead. "Something presentable."

The content of Sirius' closet was much worse than Regulus had expected, but Sirius was probably proud to say that he exceeded all his expectations.

"Brother dear," Regulus said, "I'm afraid that you've gone colorblind."

Sirius tsked from his back. "Brother mine," he said, "I'm afraid you know nothing of fashion."

"I mean—are these actual clothes? I'm quite sure that even Muggles don't prefer to have puffs of balls clinging to their shirts."

"Ah," Sirius said sagely. "That, I'm afraid, was due to… unfortunate incident. What a pity. It was one of my favorite shirts, too." Regulus didn't suppose that the unfortunate incident had turned a decent shirt into hot pink, as well. He tossed the shirt away and searched deeper into the pile.

"What I don't understand," Sirius said, showing no indication of helping Regulus, "is why you need a new shirt to meet that—that creature. It's just a house-elf."

" _He_ ," Regulus said, gritting his teeth, "has a name. And it is crucial to show him that there is absolutely nothing to worry about, and that he must go on taking care of mother oblivious of my fate as usual. Otherwise, he'll think that something's the matter and try to assist—which will only arouse suspicion in everyone else."

"Right," Sirius said drily. "I just think that you don't want Kreacher to see his _dear young master_ looking so shabby and weak."

"Like you didn't clean the kitchen when I said I wanted him here," Regulus shot back. "How long has it been—five years?"

"Nope," Sirius said, popping the p. "Only three days. You cleaned it last week, remember?" Regulus unfortunately remembered.

He was able to find a plain black shirt at the bottom of the pile. He sniffed it cautiously and began to take off his sweater.

"I don't know, Reg," Sirius sighed at no direction in particular. "I still think you need to stay rest a bit." When Regulus gave him a pointed look, Sirius responded with another pointed look—this time directly at his body.

"Sirius, I would've thought that even you weren't so immature to make this into a contest," Regulus said, trying not to automatically shield his torso from Sirius' view.

"Please," Sirius snorted. "That was so sixth year. I mean, I know that you've always been on the—er, leaner side. But right now you look downright malnourished."

"Please," Regulus said. "That was so last year."

"Unfashionably skinny, then."

"Sirius," Regulus said, mock-chidingly, buttoning the shirt as he discreetly inspected his body. Did he look _that_ frail? He did not look into the mirror much these days… "Girls never liked us because of our lovely physique." It was probably a combination of face and money and power, although Regulus supposed that Sirius' rebellious facade must have helped him in his cause as well.

"Maybe they didn't fall for _your_ physique," Sirius muttered, "but they were perfectly satisfied with mine. In every possible way you can imagine." Regulus decided to ignore the poorly hidden suggestion. Sadly, Sirius seemed to prefer this topic than what Regulus was about to do.

"I mean, didn't she like how you were?" It took Regulus a few seconds to perceive that Sirius was indeed talking about the same _she_ that Regulus had in mind.

"That is really none of your business." Regulus said, trying to hide his face from Sirius' view by rummaging frantically through Sirius' drawer of pants. For some reason, all the pants that Sirius had given him had stars and planets printed on them.

"Oh, no," Sirius said. "This is too much fun."

"You must have had all your fun with Potter when this kind of talk was actually acceptable. Sirius, you're twenty-two now."

"Exactly!" Sirius said. "Since when did twenty-anything people talk about something serious? Besides, I know more about James' body than I need to know in this lifetime." He shuddered. "Oh, my stomach feels ill even just at the memory."

"I'm sure," Regulus said drily, eyeing a pair of dark jeans. They _might_ fit…

"Don't think you've evaded me," Sirius said. "Spill. Ooh, that was an unfortunate choice of words..." When Regulus looked up, he found the face of his brother smirking. Of course.

"She liked me enough," he said stonily. Sirius' eyebrows rose.

"Huh," he said. "So you weren't really her type."

"WHAT? No, you—" Regulus paused in mid-sentence, frowning.

"You're trying to get a rise out of me."

"And it certainly looks like I'm not trying hard enough. You see, brother dear, her current boyfriend possesses quite a lovely physique. Even I think so, and I tend to be very critical when it comes to these sorts of things."

"Sirius, that's enough."

"I mean, his _shoulders_ —"

" _Sirius._ "

Sirius stopped.

"The thought for my body, which you seemed very preoccupied with, is a luxury right now. In fact, quite everything connected to my physical state is a luxury, as long as I can walk and run. Which I can. I really don't have time to think about bodies, or how I look, or—"

"It's just what you said," Sirius interrupted him.

"What?"

"What you said. That you had nothing to offer her." Sirius now looked rather uncharacteristically serious. "I guess you're not wrong. Objectively speaking, you don't have much. I just thought that you might feel better if you felt physically healthier. You used to. You loved being on the Quidditch field. Watching you, I could tell that you felt confident about what you could do." Regulus stared back at his brother for a few seconds, trying to process what Sirius was actually saying.

"I mean, the Gryffindors beat the poor Slytherin's ass every single time, but—"

"And calling me "unfashionably skinny" was supposed to show concern?"

"That's really not the point."

"And bringing _her_ up, of all people—"

"I admit, that wasn't really the point, either."

"Sirius—"

"Or maybe it was," Sirius said. "I meant it when I said that you should take it easy."

"Please do tell, then, how a fugitive is supposed take life easy."

"Well, technically, you're not a fugitive _yet_ , because no one knows that you're alive."

"How lovely," Regulus said.

"And I didn't mean just mentally," Sirius said. "We've all been through war, we know what it's like to constantly feel like you have to do something and not being able to rest, and—your body's going to suffer. Especially when you've been cursed by Dark Magic and didn't get it properly treated for over a year."

"I—"

"And—well—I thought _she_ might be one of the better incentives for you to take things easy."

Regulus frowned at him. "Just exactly what did you think was going to happen to us, Sirius? That we'd—oh, I don't know—actually meet up at Three Broomsticks and grab butterbeer?"

Now Sirius frowned back at him in confusion. "Well, maybe not right _now_ , but—"

"In case you've forgotten, I'll remind you—we went through a _war_. The days of just having a laugh over butterbeers are over, Sirius."

"Okay," Sirius said, holding his hands up in surrender at the flash in Regulus' eyes. Sometimes his brother could get downright scary. "Okay. We'll talk to Kreacher. It'll all be as stressful and anxiety-filled as you want it. Happy?"

Regulus scowled and checked the collar of the shirt in the mirror. It was crooked.

He went into the living room and sat awkwardly on the sofa. Sirius watched him with wary sort of eyes.

"Kreacher!" Regulus enunciated. For a few seconds nothing happened.

Then a loud pop came, followed by an appearance of the aged house-elf. Kreacher looked around in dazed surprise, taking in the sight of the flat—the flabby cushions on the sofa, the unswept corners, the suspicious-looking carcasses beneath the cabinet. Then his eyes landed on Regulus.

"Master Regulus?" Kreacher said in a hushed tone.

"Hullo, Kreacher," Regulus said. The sight of the old house-elf, whom he'd known all his life, brought a faint smile to his lips despite the difficulty of facing him. "How have you been?"

As an answer the house-elf flung himself at Regulus' ankles and began to howl in relief and happiness, blubbering about how he'd never lost the conviction that the clever young master would've found a way out of the lake. Regulus attempted to console him by patting him on his back, but it seemed to make Kreacher even more emotional. Sirius watched from a distance, a plain expression of disgust on his face.

"'Course," he said. "He doesn't even _see_ me." At his voice, however, Kreacher did turn toward his direction and looked at Sirius with a mix of loathing and confusion.

"Former master Sirius?" he said, looking at Regulus for confirmation. Regulus nodded.

"We're working together now," Regulus said. Kreacher, however, was not to be so easily convinced.

"But he broke our mistress' heart, the ungrateful wretch, he brought shame to the entire family—" Sirius, by this point, was getting ready to pluck the house-elf from the carpet of his flat and chuck him out the window, but Regulus gave Kreacher a firm look.

"We brought shame to the family, Kreacher, when we decided to follow the Dark Lord," he said slowly but clearly. "We have only ourselves to blame."

Kreacher sniffled and looked skeptically around the room. Then, at the sight of the dishes in the sink, he began to sob again—this time, it seemed, in despair.

"Oh, come on," Sirius said exasperatedly. "They're just dishes." Nonetheless, he waved his wand at the direction and the sponge began to scrub the dishes energetically.

"Kreacher," Regulus said, "I know this is difficult, but I need you need to calm down and tell us what happened after you got out of the cave. Could you do this for me?" Kreacher stared at Regulus' eyes which he'd seen since he was a baby.

"Kreacher got out of the cave with the locket," he said, his voice shaking. "And… and Kreacher did everything to try and destroy it, but—" at this he began to beat his head against the floorboard violently.

"Kreacher, stop," Regulus said. "You needn't punish yourself. Just tell me what happened."

Breathing heavily, Kreacher looked up in shame and said in a small voice, "Kreacher failed his master, Kreacher couldn't destroy the locket! No matter what he tried, the cursed thing just won't open—" at this he once again tried to beat his head against the floor, but Regulus stopped him in time.

"What happened to the locket, Kreacher?" he asked.

Kreacher's lips trembled. "In his cupboard, Master Regulus," he said. "It's been in Kreacher's cupboard for over a year now, and not a day has gone by when it didn't whisper things to Kreacher, how he let his master down, and—"

"Wait, _whisper_?" Sirius broke Kreacher's soliloquy. "What do you mean, whisper? It's just a locket."

"With a bit of the Dark Lord's soul in it," Regulus supplied.

"Thanks for making this less creepy."

Kreacher, meanwhile, was shaking his head slowly, as if just the thought of it made him recoil physically. "Kreacher wanted to keep it safe," he muttered senselessly. "He tried to keep it from getting discovered. But it just won't open. And Kreacher sleeps it with at night, and at night it creeps into Kreacher's dreams and says dreadful things-" Kreacher began to howl yet again. Regulus let him have his fill, wishing that he didn't understand what Kreacher was feeling as well as he did. Sirius, on the other hand, watched the house-elf with his arms crossed in front of his chest, skepticism clear on his face.

"So this Horcrux—" Sirius paused, looking for words. "It can communicate with you?"

"It seems so," Regulus said, feeling impossibly more tired than he thought was possible just that morning. "Makes sense, doesn't it? It was meant to keep him—alive. Of course it would have a strong way of reaching out to people near it. Take possession of their minds, maybe." Regulus, unaware of what he was doing, stood up and began to pace the room.

"I've never heard of something like this," Sirius said.

"Yes, well, the Dark Lord does pride himself in his ingenuity," Regulus said absent-mindedly.

"I mean, it's a piece of your soul. A soul without a body—"

"Wants a vessel," Regulus finished his sentence. "When you kill someone, their soul leaves this world. The relationship between the vessel and the soul is more close together than most realize. So when you destroy the vessel, you "kill" —that is to say, rid the world of—this soul."

"So that's why you ordered Kreacher to destroy the locket," Sirius said. Regulus nodded.

"I need to look at the books again," Regulus said, turning to Kreacher. "Kreacher, would there be a way for me to get into the house without alarming my mother?"

Kreacher, who'd been following the conversation mutely, looked at Regulus with large eyes. "Without alarming the mistress?" he repeated.

Regulus nodded grimly. "If my mother knows that I'm alive, she'll wish to notify everyone of my survival. Which would lead to my immediate arrest. I need to buy myself time."

Kreacher's eyes widened even further in horror. "But Master Regulus," he said, "mistress isn't well—oh, mistress has been worried sick, and it's been taking a toll on her delicate body, and—she stays in bed all day—" Kreacher, struggling for a way to put all this delicately into words, scrunched up his face in frustration. Regulus looked away, remembering his mother.

His mother—he loved her, or Regulus supposed that he must've loved her, after a fashion, when he was younger, as all children cling to their mothers for warmth and support. Mrs. Black, however, had never been able to provide this warmth and support—quite the opposite, in fact, and Regulus already knew, before he started Hogwarts, how to stand on his own in the world. The lesson of independence came, however, with a certain distance from his mother. Sirius interpreted this distance as spite. Regulus instead tried to hold the family together as adults always seemed to fail to do so.

So now his mother was sick. Bed-ridden. Having lost both of her children. Regulus swallowed a taste of guilt, but also a rather unkind thought that his mother could spare him this much. His entire life spent asking her for nothing—she could give him this much time.

"Books," so Regulus repeated. "I'll get you a list. Bring me the locket also—that's a given—and—"

"Wait," Sirius said. "We're bringing in the locket here?"

Regulus gave Sirius a mild look. "I thought you wouldn't like going to Grimmauld Place whenever we wanted to have a crack at it."

"Oh, no," Sirius said. "Bring in a piece of Voldemort's soul into my flat. No problem at all."

"It's contained in a locket, Sirius," Regulus said patiently. "It's not going to come out during your sleep and strangle you."

"You sure?" Sirius said, looking warily at Kreature's wide eyes. "'Coz _that_ seems to be pretty under stress right now."

"We'll keep it in my room," Regulus rolled his eyes, about to say something else, when—

Three hard knocks came from the door.

Regulus looked questioningly at Sirius, who looked back, clueless, before settling an accusatory glare at Kreacher, who, in turn, seemed just as clueless.

"Friendly neighbor?" Regulus asked casually enough.

"Not likely. Not since I almost burned down the building five months ago, anyway."

Regulus scoffed. "Some neighbor you make—but who is it then?"

Sirius marched toward the door and looked through the peephole. "Shit," he swore. "It's James."

"Potter?" Regulus swept his hair back incredulously. "What is he doing here at this time of day?"

"Beats me. Alright, Kreacher, you have to go back—"

"Kreacher doesn't take orders from Master Sirius, he ran away—"

"Alright, Kreacher, you have to go back to Mother," Regulus intervened, seeing the murderous looks in Sirius and Kreacher. "Look after her. I know you've already been doing that without my order, and that was incredibly kind of you—I know how difficult our Mother can be. But you must continue to comfort her without telling her of my survival." Kreacher nodded, tears collecting at the edges of his eyes again.

"Go!" he ushered him. "And don't forget the list of books—"

"And the locket—" Sirius added. Kreacher's eyes narrowed.

"Kreacher doesn't take orders from Master Siri—"

"Go!" Regulus said, and Kreacher disappeared with a crack. Sirius turned on him.

"Dissimulation charm?" he suggested. Regulus shook his head.

" _Homenum revelio_ will catch that in an instant," he swore. "Why do you even need to have an Auror friend?"

"Trust me, I wonder that sometimes myself. But what are we going to do then?"

"Give me a wand."

" _No_."

" _Why not_?"

"Because you're not ready."

"I'm a twenty-one year old wizard who graduated with seven N.E.W.T.s—"

"Good for you, but you're still too weak."

"If I don't get a wand and apparate out of here, my health will be my last issue."

"I'm saying that there's bloody another way—"

"Padfoot? Sirius, mate, are you in there?" James' voice rang muffled through the loft. "I stopped by your workplace, but they said you were on leave of absence, again—"

"A wand," Regulus hissed.

"No!"

"And I'm just a bit worried about you, that's all—"

Regulus punched Sirius' shoulder, hard, nodding toward the door. Sirius yelped but took the hint.

"Prongs—hey, Prongs, why would you be worried about me? It's nothing—"

"Padfoot? Oh, thank Merlin," James sounded genuinely relieved.

"Wand," Regulus growled. Sirius' eyes were slowly being possessed by panic.

"Wand!"

"Alright, fine, fine," Sirius said. "Just a moment, James! I just—need to get decent!" Sirius took off the Stinging hex and looked through the drawer.

"Decent?" James laughed. "I think I've seen far too much to ever go back to decent, Sirius." Sirius handed Regulus a wand, who inspected it critically.

"Yes, well, there's no decent with you," he murmured, waving his wand at a snow globe on the shelf. " _Wingardium leviosa_." The ball wobbled in its place, but didn't budge.

"Another wand," Regulus hissed.

"Bloody hell, why do you have to be so picky?" Sirius grumbled, taking out all the wands in the drawer and throwing them at Regulus. "Here, choose—quickly—"

"Hey, mate, any chance you'll let me in anytime soon? I'm freezing out here—"

"Damn it, damn it, damn it," Regulus said, inspecting the wands one by one.

"Yeah, almost there—"

"Found it!" Regulus said, holding out an old wand triumphantly. Sirius shook his head in exasperation.

"Then what are you waiting for?" he hissed. "Go!"

As he apparated with a crack, Sirius opened the door, smiling a tad too widely.

"Prongsie," he said. "What brings you to this… hellhole?"

* * *

Oddly enough, he ended up at the back alleyway of a part of London that he didn't recognize.

Regulus put away his wand and slowly emerged into the main street, where cars were busily rushing by one another—it was time for work, Regulus remembered. He looked around.

It was the same café that he'd visited more than a year ago, when he wrote the fateful letters to Dumbledore, Voldemort and—ah, well. No use dwelling on it now.

He checked his pockets and realized that he had absolutely no money.

A long cold walk in the snow seemed to be the only option left for him.

Pointing the tip of the wand to his face, Regulus muttered a series of spells and checked his reflection on the café window. A blond-haired man with brown eyes and a shallow face looked back at him, his wide mouth slightly agape. He mussed up his hair, feeling slightly self-conscious.

His mind was already running three steps in front of where his body was, planning, constantly planning, as he'd been doing his entire life. So he almost had the Horcrux. There were a few options available to him, Fiendfyre being the most notable one—but the spell was difficult to control, and he doubted that he had enough of power to control it should the occasion arise, and Sirius certainly wasn't going to help with the spell. He supposed that he and Sirius may be able to procure basilisk venom if desperate enough, but breaking in—no one would sell basilisk venom legally, unless for strictly academic purpose (and neither of them had permits). Regulus remembered his brother's words about a certain curse-breaker who had arguably a vast larger resource at hand and tried to dismiss the idea. But damn Merlin, Alex was beginning to look like practical necessity, not just about his desire to see her again but real asset to his—mission.

He kicked a stray stone moodily.

So far he had four known Horcruxes: Slytherin's locket, the Gaunt's ring, Hufflepuff cup, and the Ravenclaw diadem. That meant that his soul was split into five pieces, the last piece residing in the Dark Lord himself when the Lestrange manor burned down. What if he created more? Was there ever a way to make it certain?

But there was still the matter of finding the cup and the diadem. The hiding places for the two horcruxes he'd found—the cave and the Gaunt house. Perhaps the Gaunt house made sense—it was basically a hovel, barely standing on the ground, but it was nevertheless the residence of the old family who had directly descended from the Slytherins. But the cave. Why the cave? Why? Did the place have any meaning to him? Knowing the Dark Lord, he would not have put pieces of his soul in any random place—no, the Dark Lord loved power and recognition far too much for him to throw something so precious into any arbitrary place. Someone would need to awaken the Dark Lord, should a piece of his soul ever perish. He must have entrusted them to someone he trusted, someone he knew that would not betray him.

Regulus groaned. There were two persons he knew out of all Death Eaters who was fanatic enough to follow the Dark Lord after his death, and neither one of them made particularly pleasant company for a tea party.

Bellatrix Lestrange and Bartemius Crouch Jr.

What a fun pair.

* * *

"Tea?" Sirius offered, trying to keep his voice light. James looked around the flat, looking a bit wary.

"What happened here?" he demanded.

"What'y'mean?"

"It's—clean. Organized. Blimey, you can see floor now."

"Very funny," Sirius drawled, secretly cursing Regulus for cleaning the flat, again. Not that having a clean house didn't have its perks, mind, but it took even longer to find some things than it used to.

"What's going on, Sirius?"

"What would be going on?"

"Mate, you're not going to work—you love your job."

"There are just some things I need to take care of," Sirius tried to evade James' unusually sharp gaze.

"Related to Regulus?"

Sirius attempted to look natural. "Yeah. Related to him," he said quietly.

"You said you found his body."

"Yes," Sirius said, looking into his best friend's face. Then, for the first time in his life, he told James Potter a lie. "I found him in a seaside village. He was dead, and the Muggle authorities didn't know who he was, so they threw him in the public cemetery. Now there's all the legal issues and I have to report him officially dead and take care of the family inheritance, which I thought I escaped from six years ago—apparently not."

Sirius couldn't tell if James believed his faked annoyance or not. "You seemed out of it a few days ago."

"What is this, an interrogation?" Sirius immediately regretted snapping at his best friend. Then he saw the look in James' eyes.

Yes, this was an interrogation, and Sirius Black was the suspect.

The guilt evaporated inside of him, replaced with—mistrust. Mistrust in his friends that Sirius hadn't felt since the war.

"No," James said, but the wary look didn't leave his face. "No, of course not." He sat casually on the sofa, the sofa that Regulus had been sitting on less than five minutes ago.

"How's work at the Office?" Sirius asked casually.

"Fine," James slowly said. "A little annoying. These Death Eaters, you'd think their guilt would be clear as day, but no, there's still politics involved. Bribes. Cutting deals. The new Minister of Magic wants to show that our policy is mercy, not cruel violence—or something like that. If you ask me, chucking them to Azkaban is mercy, but—" James emitted a long, deep, un-James-like sigh. Sirius regarded his friend, considering.

James had always been lighthearted, but, unlike Sirius, he was never light-headed. But it seemed as though he'd aged a decade in the past four months. There were deep crevices on his forehead that Sirius didn't notice when he came to visit a few days ago. His hunched shoulders and tired neck belied the years he spent as a Marauder, enlivening the lives residing the Hogwarts castle. Even his usually messy hair seemed flatter, more obedient somehow.

"Isn't there a bloke named Crouch? Head of the Law Enforcement?" Sirius began to look through the last few days' copies of the _Daily Prophet_. "He seemed pretty… strict." James sighed and stretched out on the couch.

"We apprehended his own son," he said, sighing heavily again. "Bloody hell. He can't stop confessing. _Loves_ the old nutcase, apparently. Crouch Senior is trying to stall, I think. Have his son give up a few names, lighten his sentence. I don't see any chances of that happening, though."

Sirius tapped his knuckles impatiently against the armchair.

"I'm sorry to hear that, mate," he said. James shrugged.

"Could be worse," he muttered. They sat in silence for a while.

"What happened to us?" James suddenly burst out. "I thought I'd seen enough when we realized that Peter was—that he betrayed us. But no, that was only the beginning. I thought that, once the war was over, everything would be back to way it was. That there would be some decency in the world, and people would go around helping each other. I'm starting to think that everything was always dirty and messed up, and that I just didn't see it before." Sirius remembered his brother, his annoyed glances, his dry, infuriating retorts, and thought that, just maybe, James was wrong.

"Let's not think that way," he said gently. "Think about Harry! And Lily, and Moony—I heard he's doing well at Hogwarts, the new DADA professor, a damned good one at that…"

James snorted. "Can you imagine Moony yelling at sixth-years? We were such brats back then…"

"You were always a brat," Sirius said. "I dunno, I think I would have found him pretty cool."

"Yeah," James conceded. "I'm sure they love him." Sirius watched as James sat pondering.

"I'm sorry, mate," he eventually said. "I trust you, I always have."

"I know," Sirius said, trying not to show his guilt. Regulus was—yes, he was guilty of being a Death Eater. But James couldn't have him, not now, not when they still had to bring Voldemort down, and when—

When he just got his little brother back.

"It's just—everything's suspect these days, and I don't know how to stop doing my day job, I suppose." Sirius smiled assuringly as James took a sip of his tea.

Then James froze, and Sirius knew that something was wrong.

"Huh," James said.

"What is it?" Sirius said, slowly stuffing his mouth with biscuits, one by one. If he couldn't talk, he'd have lower chance of incriminating himself.

"Nothing," he said. "Just… remembered that I actually have a meeting soon, and I really shouldn't keep the—officers waiting, and—"

"Right," Sirius said rising from his seat quickly. James nodded.

"Maybe we can have brunch on Sunday," Sirius suggested.

"Yeah, maybe… if Lily's not too busy," James said, clearly distracted.

"Well, see you—" Sirius said, but James was out the door before he could even finish the sentence. Sirius sunk back on the sofa, picking up the teacup glumly.

"Fine," he grumbled, taking a sip. His eyes widened.

Bergamot.

 _Shit_.


	7. February 24th, 1982-February 25th, 1982

A/N: Hello all! I'm back:) I know the updates have been slow; I ended up taking a course during the summer that is taking up a lot more time than I initially thought I would. I will, however, try to write as much as I can before the fall semester begins. Meanwhile, please read and review!

* * *

"Bad news." Sirius looked incredulously at his brother as they both said the same thing at the same time.

" _More_?"

"What else is new?" Regulus muttered, stepping inside the loft.

"What bad news could you possibly have had in the past two hours?"

"I could ask you the same question," Regulus retorted. He peered at the nearby mirror and shuddered. "Still blond," he muttered.

"I like the hair," Sirius couldn't resist saying. "So un-Regulus-Black like. You look almost nice, y'know that?"

"And you," Regulus said murderously, "better watch out. One of these days you'll wake up to find your precious locks gone."

"Not a chance," Sirius said. "I have my hair insured, you know."

"So what's the bad news?"

Sirius rocked back and forth in his spot. "Maybe you go first," he said.

"Don't be dramatic, Sirius."

"Don't be dramatic, Regulus."

Regulus scowled. "Fine," he said. "I've been doing some thinking, and I think that knowing more about horcruxes isn't enough—we need to learn more about the specific horcruxes. How many he created, where he's hid them, and who knows about them."

Sirius frowned. "I don't understand. Why would he tell anyone about them?"

"Because horcruxes by themselves can't accomplish anything. They need a vessel, remember? An animate vessel that will free the soul and… give it a new body. _Somebody_ has to know. Voldemort must have told someone."

"Alright," Sirius sighed. "Any ideas?"

"Two names," Regulus said. "I think you know one of them fairly well."

"Who?"

Regulus smiled sardonically. "Think, brother mine. We do have a colorful array of cousins, after all."

It took Sirius only a second. "Oh, _hell_ ," he groaned.

"What I said."

" _Bellatrix Lestrange_?!"

"Dear cousin Bella." Regulus slumped on the sofa. "I can't say that I fancy that meeting at all." Sirius swore.

"It's not just that," he said. "The last time I heard, she was already thrown into Azkaban. She offered no defense. Just admitted all crimes she committed and—well, laughed in the Inquisitor's face. If you want to talk to her, you—"

"Need to break into Azkaban," Regulus finished grimly.

"Well, we'll certainly go down in the history books," Sirius joked. "The first people to try to break _into_ Azkaban."

"Can't be harder than breaking out," Regulus murmured, bringing the fingertips of his hands together, resting his chin on the pointy end. Sirius scoffed.

"No one's ever succeeded."

Regulus' eyes gained a strange glint. "And you call yourself a Marauder?"

"Maybe I'm not so reckless as you are," Sirius retorted. "Maybe I see more reasons to live."

Something in the hard line of Regulus' mouth told Sirius that he was dangerously close to the line. He backtracked.

"Well, who's the other person?"

"Bartemius Crouch Jr. His father's the—"

"The head of the Law Enforcement, I know," Sirius said, pacing in the living room. "James just mentioned him."

"Potter?" Regulus straightened on the sofa. "What did he say?"

"He thinks Crouch's stalling. Waiting for his son to see the light."

"Not going to happen," Regulus scoffed. "I know I got branded young, but Crouch—he would've served his parents' heads on a silver platter for Voldemort. Now _that_ takes some dedication."

"Not funny," Sirius scowled.

"But we still have a problem," Regulus said. "Barty's still under arrest. Where do they hold these prisoners for trial?"

Sirius groaned. "Where do you think?"

"I don't know, I don't have an Auror for a best friend." More correctly, he lost his best friend. But never mind that…

"Ministry of Magic," Sirius muttered glumly. "The bottom floor. No one's ever allowed there except a few bailiffs and Aurors."

Regulus swore. "Remind me why you never applied to be an Auror again?"

"Because I'd get bored and quit," Sirius said. "You know I have the attention span of a dog."

"Dogs have longer attention spans than you," Regulus said. "Ever seen them on a hunt?"

Sirius chucked a nearby throw cushion at Regulus direction, but Regulus deflected it easily.

"You're losing your aim," he laughed. Sirius shook his head.

"So let me get this straight," he said. "Our options are either to break into the Ministry of Magic when it's on extra high alert due to some of the most infamous trials in our century, or to break into Azkaban, the highest security prison known to every wizard of all times."

Regulus nodded, smiling grimly. "You missed one thing."

"Oh really? What would that be?"

"We're not breaking into either the Ministry _or_ Azkaban. We're breaking into _both_ the Ministry _and_ Azakaban. Bellatrix might have information that Barty doesn't, and vice versa."

"Great," Sirius said. "That's great."

Regulus paused. "What was your news?"

"Oh, that," Sirius said arily, waving his hand. "I think James suspects that you're alive, but who cares, right? The Ministry guards and the dementors are going to get their hands on us before James ever does."

" _What_?" Regulus stood up, anxiety pumping from his chest to the rest of his body. "How's that possible?"

"Because I let you go shopping for groceries!" Sirius yelled. "And you bought tea with bergamot in it! Who the hell likes bergamot, anyway?"

"I do!"

"Well, I don't!"

Realization dawned on Regulus' face. "Oh. And Potter—"

"Noticed, what do you _think_?"

"This is bad."

" _You think_?"

It wasn't that Regulus had planned on hiding forever; in fact, as soon as this infernal hunt for horcruxes was over, he'd planned to turn himself over to the authorities so that they could take proper measures against the likes of him. But—this was too soon. And perhaps Aurors would have an easier time finding horcruxes, but he _had_ to do this.

Otherwise he wouldn't be able to sleep at nights.

"Okay," Regulus said. "There are some measures that we can take. I don't leave this house looking like me, for one thing. Don't be seen leaving or entering the house, because people will suspect if you have strange blokes coming in and out of your house every day. And—"

"I've been thinking," Sirius said. "Maybe it'll be better if we relocate. It's not like either of us need to be in London."

Regulus stopped pacing "You don't mean it?"

"Temporarily," he said. "Somewhere that James wouldn't know."

"Wouldn't he start looking for you?" Regulus asked. Sirius sighed.

"Honestly, I don't know what he'll do when he finds out."

* * *

Something that Regulus found out after he became a Death Eater—he was stealthier than most people. Which came to him as little surprise, of course—he'd spent his childhood trying to discreetly disappear into corners during holiday dinners and parties, preferring to read in the library or watch Kreacher make holiday festivities in the kitchen. Kreacher shooed him out, of course, saying that the kitchen was no suitable place for a Black child, and that Mistress would scold him if she found him in the kitchen. Regulus had to concede that the house elf had a point, but that didn't stop him from stealing away from loud, crowded scenes. He never liked being with people who didn't like him anyway.

A habit that he never imagined would use for this particular purpose.

Diagon Alley in the morning was full of bustle from those who had their business in the area. Shopkeepers opened their front doors; Ministry officials marched in a self-important swagger. Gringrotts goblins trotted at the sides, their noses buried in long documents. Regulus' eyes flitted from person to person suspiciously even though he was disguised under the Disillusionment Charm. He shrunk back just in time as an aggressive passerby came close to brushing his shoulder with him. Regulus shook his head. Time to focus.

The familiar bobbing of ginger head pulled him into the crowd again.

The advocate Thomas Leyre' office took up an entire floor in the main part of Diagon Alley, protected by many wards that kept the intrusive eyes from the precious documents housed within the office. It was occupied constantly by his poor assistant, Bernard O'Neal, whose scrawny frame was the second pitiable thing about him, the first being Leyre's barks directed at his assistant. Various partners flitted to and fro in his office, but the biggest cases were taken on by Leyre himself, who had a reputation among Pureblood families for his efficiency and rate of success, no matter the morality at stake.

Typical of Crouch to request him, really.

Regulus watched as Leyre opened the door. He'd been following this middle-aged man for the past two and a half weeks, trying to learn his gait, his way of speaking, and the location of certain items that he kept—but as far as Regulus could tell, the key to the office was one thing that O'Neal had complete control over. Regulus slipped in from behind Leyre quickly before anyone could notice the door lingering open.

"O'Neal!" Leyre's voice reverberated through the entire floor. "Where's the Klopstock deposition?"

Regulus watched as O'Neal scurried. "Here, Mr. Leyre," he said. "And this is your coffee—"

Leyre's eyes narrowed. "Why is there milk?" he said suspiciously. O'Neal visibly gulped.

"You—you requested that you wanted milk with your coffee yesterday, Mr. Leyre," he squeaked. Leyre's face was beginning to grow red—Regulus checked his watch. Nine-oh-five. Record time, even for Leyre, really.

"Why would I ever request something like that?" he shouted, his eyes bulging. Other people in the office looked away and went about their business more quickly.

"I'm sorry, sir," O'Neal stuttered. Leyre harrumphed loudly.

"Get me another one," he snapped, and O'Neal nodded.

"Yes, sir."

Regulus watched as O'Neal scurried to the pantry and swiftly sat on O'Neal's desk. Looking around him quickly, Regulus laid his hands on the notebook of appointments that he'd seen O'Neal write on a few days ago. The notebook, for all intents and purposes, disappeared to everyone's eyes except for Regulus'. He flipped through the pages, looking for the name.

"February 25th," Regulus muttered, satisfied. He was about to close the book when he saw another appointment a week after: Lucius Malfoy, at 4:00 on March 1st. Urgent—this was written in red—re: security.

Regulus knew that this was nothing out of the ordinary for (paranoid) pureblood families, who must've all taken a hit since the fall of the Dark Lord. But the Malfoys already lived in a house more secure than most regular Gringotts vaults. They would have little problem keeping this secure by themselves. So what was this? He flipped through the notebook, hoping that more details would show. But there was nothing.

"O'Neal!" Leyre's voice came from his private office. "Coffee!" Regulus quickly put the notebook where he'd found it and stood up from the desk as O'Neal's face poked from the pantry door.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Leyre," he said. "I'm afraid I've spilled some of the coffee…" Leyre muttered something about inadequate assistants, and Regulus quickly walked into the pantry. O'Neal was struggling with the coffee pot, tapping his fingers uneasily as the kettle boiled.

"Tough morning, huh?" one of the associates—Simpson—said sympathetically. O'Neal grinned.

"It's not so bad," he said. Regulus inched closer to the coffee mug next to O'Neal, trying his best to keep a distance in case O'Neal decided to swipe his arms or make any sudden movements.

"Say, Rachel," O'Neal continued, feigning casualness that even Regulus had to pity. "Are you—do you have any plans tonight?" Regulus carefully opened a vial of Draught of Drowsiness and emptied its contents into the mug. Fortunately, nothing splashed—and O'Neal was too engrossed in appearing casual to notice.

"I don't know," Simpson said vaguely. "Some of us are going out for drinks… Celebrate the Dolohov case, y'know…"

"Oh yeah," O'Neal said, nodding enthusiastically to agree. "He got a pardon from the Ministry, didn't he? Nice one, that…" Regulus bit back a retort. Dolohov got a jail-free card, then, did he? Clearly not something to celebrate. "Anyway, the drinks tonight—why wasn't I invited?"

"O'NEAL!" Leyre's bellow was unmistakable and O'Neal jumped in his spot.

"I'll leave you to it, then," Simpson quickly patted O'Neal's shoulder and left.

"Damn it," O'Neal muttered, pouring the coffee into the mug. Regulus followed him closely as O'Neal brought the coffee to Leyre's office with shaking hands.

"There it is, Mr. Leyre," O'Neal said uncertainly. Leyre didn't even look up from his document.

"The deposition," he said instead, and O'Neal, looking terrified, ran out of the office.

"Idiot," Leyre muttered, and took a sip of the coffee. Regulus watched, aware of how loud his own breathing was, and waited, until Leyre frowned, sweeping his forehead with his palm. He shook his head, trying to wake up, and went back to his documents, but Regulus saw his eyes drooping. Grinning, he crept up behind Leyre and, hands trembling, slipped his hand under Leyre's arm to get to his personal notebook in which Leyre wrote down all the details for his cases. March 1st. March 1st. March 1st. Malfoy, Lucius. There it was.

Securing a vault in Gringotts?

Frowning, Regulus returned to February 25th, when Leyre had a meeting with his client. Bartemius Crouch Jr. Charge: murder, aiding and abetting Voldemort, yada yada yada. Some notes that Regulus already knew. Regulus reached out into the left pocket and took out the last vial containing Awake-wakey tonic. Good thing that the stuff tasted as vile as office coffee. He unceremoniously dumped the entire content into the mug as Leyre's head drooped into his chest.

"Mr. Leyre?" O'Neal's uncertain voice made Leyre's head shoot straight up, and Leyre blinked his eyes rapidly, trying not to let the fact that he'd been dozing off just seconds before.

"Yes," Leyre said, his voice thick.

"The deposition you requested, Mr. Leyre," O'Neal said. Leyre took the envelope gingerly.

"Yes, yes… that'll be all," he said, grumbling, O'Neal exited the office, a little more light-hearted than when he'd entered.

Regulus slipped out behind him, quickening his steps.

Back in the Diagon Alley, he crept behind the pet shop and revered the Disillusionment charm, looking down at his own now visible hands with some relief. Next he transformed his hair, this time messy brown, and thickened his brows while elongating his nose. The transformation of the jaw, he knew, would be more painful, so he settled for thinning the lips instead. He checked his reflection on the dusty windowpane on the back of the pet shop. Not bad.

Feeling reasonably secure, he jogged briskly to the nearest potions shop.

"Two scoops of lacewings, please," Regulus said without preamble. The shopkeeper nodded. Regulus leaned against the counter, watching the passerby go. Ten in the morning. A nice time of day—

Regulus' heart stopped.

"The lacewings? Sir?" The shopkeeper tapped the register impatiently. "The lacewings you asked for."

"Sorry," Regulus said, fumbling to get the coins out from his pocket. "Here—"

The shopkeeper nodded, and Regulus raced out the door with the container of lacewings and change in his hands. The black hair, the tall stature, the upright air was unmistakable, completely unmistakable.

He wanted to yell at her to wait for him, to stop and turn and look at him, to see him, but he knew that he shouldn't, that he couldn't, no matter how much he wanted to. Instead he followed her at distance, watching the large load on her shoulders sway to her steps. The bag had the Gringrotts logo on it.

Before Regulus realized where she was headed, she was already going up the steps, her steps sure and certain. Regulus followed after her hurriedly.

"… the shares from the Zheng excavation," he heard her say to one of the goblins at the counter. The goblin peered into the bag.

"Is this all?" he asked, his eyes narrowed. Alex sighed.

"You know that's more than what you asked for."

"We asked for the maximum," the goblin answered primly, but he took the sack and slid it beneath the counter nonetheless.

"Always a pleasure," Alex said, turning to leave. Regulus tripped; in his eagerness to see where she was headed, he'd been unaware of his own odd position in the middle of the Gringotts lobby, staring avidly at her. Alex merely raised a languid eyebrow before her eyes began to widen. But she couldn't recognize him. She wouldn't be able to, with all his disguise—

His feet disobeyed his logic telling him that it was impossible. He was pushing open the Gringotts door before he knew what was happening, his hands reaching automatically for his wand. Stupid, stupid—what was he thinking? Behind him he heard someone yell something like 'wait,' but Regulus just wasn't ready to turn around and face her again. Taking out his wand, he disaparated.

Seconds later, Sirius was looking up at him from the floor.

"Something happened?" he asked. "You look like you've seen a ghost, or something."

"Nothing," Regulus muttered. "I got the lacewings." He began to unpack various things within his satchel.

"Alright," Sirius said offhandedly. "Cool."

"Yeah," said absentmindedly, heading toward the bathroom.

The reflection of his face in the mirror was indeed a sight of its own. Face deadly pale, with cool sweat on his brows. The clumsy mustache he'd picked in the alleyway looked stupid now. His hair was in wild disarray, standing up in a hundred different directions. And something in his eyes made him look like a wild, cornered animal. His hand wouldn't stop shaking. The sound of his heart thumping felt like the drumbeat of the ritual leading to his death.

 _Merlin_.

"Hey, Reg?" Sirius called from the living room.

"Yes?"

"The potion's done." Sirius' uncharacteristically reasonable and calm voice brought him a little closer to reality.

"That's great," Regulus said quietly, reentering the room to examine the cauldron. "That looks—"

"Absolutely disgusting, I know," Sirius finished his sentence. "But according to Caius the Canine, when it comes to Polyjuice potions, more disgusting the better, apparently." They watched the thick, gray substance bubble froggishly for a while.

"I don't care what Caius the Canine says, that stuff looks disgusting."

"At least we'll suffer together," Sirius said cheerily. Regulus sighed.

"Did you check Leyre's calendar?"

"Yes," Regulus said, taking out a small notebook. "Barty has an appointment with his advocate on February 25th, at nine in the morning. I suspect we'll need to be prompt and on time."

"Wait, the 25th?" Sirius narrowed his eyes. "That's _tomorrow_ , Reg."

"Yes, so? We already know their habits, the details. It wouldn't change anything whether it's tomorrow or next month." _And, seeing as Potter may be on to them, better do everything as quickly as possible_. But he didn't say this to his brother.

They'd discussed where the best hiding place for Regulus would be. Regulus could remember a few dilapidated cottages that fell out of use that no one would miss, but Sirius pointed out that the cottages were still on the official list of the Black family property and that James would be thorough enough to check all of them. Seeking any random house was also not within Sirius' budget (it was an odd experience to see his brother, the eldest son of the Black family, talk about "budget"), and it also seemed that Potter would get even more suspicious if Sirius suddenly disappeared from his own loft—so in London they stayed, Regulus taking precaution to enter or exit the loft disguised. If Potter decided to use homenum revelio he would have little chance, but as long as Potter maintained a cautious distance, they should be—okay.

"You thought about what I said?" Sirius asked offhandedly. Regulus wasn't fooled.

"I said that the discussion was over, Sirius."

"Well, considering the extenuating circumstances—"

"What extenuating circumstances?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe the fact that we're breaking into the Ministry of Magic tomorrow?"

"We already have a plan figured out."

"Not for _tomorrow_!"

"It's not like tomorrow's going to be different from any other day," Regulus said.

"Look, I just think it's better to use every resource we have. Having two more people would mean that we would actually have a lookout, and—"

"And there would be higher chances of us getting caught," Regulus interrupted. "Pros versus cons, we stick to the original plan."

Sirius sighed. "You're going to have to see her someday," he said, sounding like an exasperated older brother. What an experience. "You can't avoid her forever."

"I'm not avoiding her," Regulus said automatically. His mind went back to just a few minutes ago, when his eyes beheld for the first time in—years. It really had been years. How was that even possible? He was twenty-one, and according to Sirius his life had barely begun—but it must've been a lifetime since he'd seen her last. He wasn't the same person that he was back then, and much must have changed for her as well. But the sight of her still made his heart skip irregularly in nervousness and gladness. Still he became aware of his own breathing, wanted to know every thought that crossed her mind. Impossible.

"Really," Sirius said, unconvinced. Regulus shrugged.

"Tomorrow morning, we'll proceed as planned."

Sirius sighed. "Great," he said.

"I thought you would be more excited about the prospect of breaking and entering, considering the times you broke into the Slytherin dormitory. What's the worst thing that can happen anyway—Potter'll get you out of jail soon enough, probably. Don't you have a special pardon for Order members?"

Sirius made a sound that dogs sometimes made when they were irritated. "I don't care what happens to me, you prat," he said. "I'm worried about what'll happen to you."

"I can take care of myself—"

"No, you can't!" Sirius shouted, suddenly standing up to face Regulus fully in the face. Regulus didn't realize until then that Sirius' face seemed a little hollow, as if he'd lost weight since his unintentional arrival to Peter's cottage.

"You don't see it, do you?" Sirius kept on shouting. "You think it's just about the Horcruxes, and making up for what you did in the past, and you know what, if it was just about anyone else, I would say good for you, crack on, because hell knows that Death Eaters and Voldemort did enough harm to everyone to last a lifetime. But you know what, you're my little brother—and every decision I make, I do it thinking about how it'll affect you. Because you can't take care of yourself, not in your condition, and I don't know a lot about making decision for two people, but that's how it is. So would it kill you, Regulus, to consider me every once in a while in your decisions?"

"You can take care of yourself," Regulus said quietly. "You made that perfectly clear when you left Grimmauld Place."

"Just how long do you plan on rehashing that old—"

"I'm sorry, Sirius," Regulus said. "Sometimes I forget."

Sirius twitched irritably. "Forget what?"

"That beneath all the—bravado and big words and—noisiness—you didn't have many people taking care of you." Regulus looked around the room uncomfortably. He and Sirius—they didn't talk much after they started Hogwarts, because neither of them were ever big on talking and—it was more convenient to simply resent each other at that time.

"Yeah, well," Sirius said, his voice thick and awkward. "It's not like you had the perfect childhood, either." Regulus rubbed his eyes tiredly.

"I know I'm asking for a lot, breaking into the Ministry and everything, and if you don't have to do anything that you don't want to do, I certainly can't hold it against you—"

"Shut up," Sirius said irritably. "We're going to the Ministry tomorrow."

* * *

The next morning Regulus woke up with his heart drumming in his chest and his ears ringing with the sound of blood banging against his veins. The clock beside him said it was barely five.

Judging from Sirius' disgruntled expression, he didn't sleep much better, either. Regulus placed a mug of coffee in front of him and Sirius drank the entire cup in three large gulps, seemingly unaware of the hot liquid.

"Bloody hell," he swore.

"Morning to you, too," Regulus said, looking out the window. It was one of the days in London when rain pelted against the pavements. Gloomy. Dreary.

"O'Neal's house is in—"

"Camden. Make sure that you wear your tie crooked, otherwise people'll think he actually acquired a fashion sense."

Sirius nodded. "Will do," he said in a poor Irish accent. Regulus shook his head.

"Maybe it's better if O'Neal doesn't talk at all."

"Oy, my accent's not that bad—"

"He's a shy person anyway," Regulus interrupted. "Leyre lives in Notting Hill. He needs to make it to the appointment by ten, which means he'll set off from his office around nine thirty at the latest. He'll need to be in his office before nine so that he can go over the case, which means that O'Neal will be in the office by eight thirty. It's a good thing that we brewed so much of the stuff…"

Sirius unceremoniously took out two large flasks. "Polyjuice potion to go," he said.

"Make sure to—"

"Get the hair on his head, not on his clothes, yeah, I know," Sirius monotone. "I'm not some rookie, you know."

Regulus sighed. "Yeah, I know."

"Have you packed for the mission?"

"About to," Regulus muttered, heading toward the bedroom.

There wasn't much to pack. Some first-aid potions, some bandages, a small vial of Veritaserum that Sirius had for a random reason, a spare wand—

The copy of _Magick Most Evile_ on the bedstand that Kreacher had brought him caught his eyes and Regulus paused. In case something went dreadfully wrong—in case they could never return to the flat—it was probably better that he had the book with him. On the other hand, if he was caught, it would be much better if he didn't have the book with him. Regulus shook his head and shoved the book inside his bag along with a change of clothing. Then he waved the wand around the entire room, erasing any detail that could be traced back to him.

And then it was a dreadfully long wait. Even Sirius remained quiet, tapping his fingers and checking his watch every five seconds. Finally, it was eight. He stood up from the table and stretched.

"If something happens—" he began.

"Run," Regulus said. Sirius raised his eyebrows.

"Don't try to come back for me—run as far away as you can. They still don't have any evidence to tie me back to you. Go to _them_ , and figure out what you're going to do."

"What, not even try to—I don't know, help you escape, or—"

"That would only take too much time, and it's too risky. The most important thing is destroying the Horcruxes. Don't you agree?"

Sirius gave Regulus one long, stern look. Then, without answering, he dissaparated. Sighing—could his brother never do as he was told?—he held out his wand, changed the shape of his nose and his eyes, and dissaparated as well.

* * *

Seconds later, fat raindrops hit him forcefully on his head, making his neck bend over. He shielded his vision with his hand and began to walk down the street where Leyre resided by himself. Nasty divorce three years ago. Good news for him. He took a discreet position by the nearby bus stop, waiting casually as any Muggle would do. . But his fingers kept twitching.

Perhaps he was being too abrupt with Sirius. But it seemed that—well, that Sirius began to look for him as soon as the war was over. Took an indefinite leave of absence. To look for his younger brother's body. Even though he never said anything to Sirius about it, Regulus was—touched, and embarrassed, and secretly a little bit happy. But that made him feel bad in some completely different ways. Sirius, it seemed, despite everything, the years of resenting each other, misunderstanding each other's intentions, and hoping for the impossible that each brother may come around to their senses, cared. This should've made Regulus glad, that, as he himself secretly wondered about his brother's well-being, Sirius secretly (and however grudgingly) wished the best for him as well. But this also meant that—well, perhaps they were doomed for a life in which their emotions should not matter, first as children when their parents and the society they were born into simply did not know how to make space for childish spontaneity and joy, and later as they grew older, when caring meant pain and loss in war.

But Regulus knew that, despite his demand that Sirius not seek to free him if Regulus should ever get captured, he would try to free Sirius if he should ever be imprisoned, no matter what.

The door opened, cutting Regulus' train of thought short.

Leyre was a Muggle-born, and, Regulus suspected, not the most talented of wizards—if he had been, Regulus suspected, Leyre would have opted for a career that required less paperwork than law. But this had some perks. Leyre opted to walk to work every morning, providing Regulus with ample opportunities to—well, kidnap him, really.

Beginning to walk behind Leyre, Regulus soon caught up with him and bumped into him—hard. Leyre turned around, irritated to the top of his head, which was plastered with what little hair he had left due to rain.

"Watch it," he growled. Regulus stumbled and spilled the cup of coffee he had been holding all over Leyre's coat. Leyre pulled back in rude annoyance.

"I'm sorry, please, let me get that for you—" Regulus blubbered, dabbing the front of Leyre's shirt with napkin—a useless task, he knew, in the rain, but Regulus had not been counting on the weather when he made up this plan. Leyre shook himself off Regulus' grasp and turned around to leave. Regulus looked around the street. No one was there, except for a few cars that passed by.

"I'm late," Leyre muttered. Regulus grabbed his shoulder one last time.

"Please, let me help—" he began, turning Leyre to face him again. Leyre's eyes narrowed.

"Listen, boy—" he began threateningly, but what he was about to say to a potential convict, Regulus never found out. Pressing his wand discreetly against Leyre's back, Regulus stunned the older man and grunted as Leyre's limp body fell against his.

"Alright," Regulus muttered, dragging Leyre's body into an alleyway. He'd thought about the best place it would be to intercept Leyre, and realized that a Muggle neighborhood would be much less conspicuous—and make it harder for magical authorities—than any place in Diagon Alley. He plucked several strands of Leyre's hair and dropped it into his vial of Polyjuice potion, watching it turn into a vile shade of green. Regulus shuddered and, deciding that it would be best not to think too much about it, wrinkled his nose and took a quick sip.

The transformation wasn't as bad as he'd feared, but that didn't mean that he liked it.

Every muscle and bone in his body resisted the effects of the potion. A keen sensation of nausea grabbed him, shook him to the core, and Regulus had a hard time keeping himself from retching. But the transformation was soon over and he looked at the dim reflection of himself in a dirty old window to find Leyre staring back at him. He shook his head distastefully.

Regulus duplicated Leyre's clothes, changed clumsily (the rain making the fabric stick to his skin didn't help) and shoved his own in his bag. Concentrating on his destination, he disapparted.

"O'Neal!" Regulus-Leyre shouted gruffly as he entered his office. O'Neal scurried to his side, looking flustered. Regulus cleared his throat.

"Dog bones," he said. O'Neal grinned an uncanny, un-O'Neal-like grin.

"Fisherman," O'Neal said. Regulus let go of the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.

"Thank Merlin," he said, looking around to check if any of O'Neal's colleagues were eavesdropping. "Any trouble?"

Sirius shrugged. "O'Neal's not much of a duelist. He'll wake up in his apartment in the afternoon."

Regulus nodded and began to go through Leyre's drawers, looking for the file that Leyre must've made for Barty's case. Sirius fidgeted in his spot, looking uncomfortable.

"What is it?" Regulus asked. Sirius pouted.

"O'Neal's clothes," he said. "They're… so… itchy."

Regulus rolled his eyes. "It's a good thing that O'Neal never looks comfortable anywhere. There it is." He held out the file, grimly satisfied. "Ready?"

"To break into the Ministry? When am I ever not?" Sirius grinned cheerily and shook his hair, which did not have its usual effect as O'Neal's hair was cropped unfashionably short.

"Stop it," Regulus said, biting back a grin despite the situation. "You're supposed to be unhappily exploited by your boss, remember?"

* * *

"Thomas Leyre," the receptionist read out slowly, like a child who had just learned to read the alphabet. "Thomas… Leyre…"

"Check the books," Regulus said impatiently, trying to hide his nervousness. Several Aurors lurked nearby, watching the duo cautiously. It was probably a good thing that Leyre was known for his foul mood and behavior—Regulus couldn't think of any other way to hide his nervousness. Next to him Sirius-O'Neal kept fidgeting uncomfortably, his eyes shifting every few seconds to different parts of the room. Regulus slapped his shoulder, hard.

"Stop fidgeting," he scowled. Sirius let out a whimper that was more dog-like than O'Neal-like.

"Sorry, Mr. Leyre," he said, shooting Regulus a death glare when no one was looking. The receptionist, on the other hand, seemed finally to have found the appointment.

"Leyre!" he said in triumph. "Ten o'clock, Bartemius Crouch Junior… he's in the holding cell number eight. If we could just see your wand, Mr. Leyre, it's the new security measure, as you know…"

"Fine," Regulus said tersely, providing Leyre's wand that he nicked from the unconscious body. Sirius handed O'Neal's wand as well, looking unhappy. The receptionist disappeared into the back of the room and Sirius approached Regulus, looking unhappy.

"There are too many guards," he mouthed. Regulus sighed.

"O'Neal, don't inflict your incompetence on me," he said loudly, and threw up his hands in dramatic exasperation when the receptionist came back. "Well?"

"All clear, Mr. Leyre," he said. "But I'm afraid that we'll have to keep the wands—you'll get them back after the meeting! Now, if you'll just sign here—oh, hello, Mister Potter!" The receptionist straightened automatically, but it was Regulus and Sirius who stiffened the most in the room. Slowly, they turned around to face the hazel flashes coming from behind Potter's glasses. Potter regarded the two of them, and the expression on his face made it clear what he thought of Leyre's work and his clientele.

"Mr. Leyre," Potter said curtly. "We meet again."

"Mr. Potter," Regulus said, trying to seem as unconcerned as he possibly could. "What a… pleasant surprise."

Potter made no effort to return the courtesy, however thinly hiding the antagonism. "I wish I could say the same. In any case, I volunteered to overlook this meeting. Crouch is one of our more sensitive cases, if you understand what I mean."

"I understand perfectly what you mean," Regulus returned coolly, racking his brain to remember what the solicitors who visited his house during his childhood used to say. What was it? "But the attorney-client privilege prevents any and all presence of the Auror office in these meetings—as I'm sure you understand."

Potter's eyes narrowed. "In this case I am certain that the judge will rule—"

"And until you have the ruling you may safely _follow the law_ ," Regulus grinned unpleasantly. "That's what you Aurors do, isn't it? Making sure that _everyone_ follows the law?"

Potter's face whitened and his lips thinned in anger, but to his credit he didn't say anything.

"Well then," Regulus said. "Come along, O'Neal!" Without looking back Regulus marched toward where the receptionist held the door for him. Sirius trotted after him and, when the doors were safely closed behind them, Sirius sighed.

"Blimey," he whispered, looking cautiously at the guard walking in front of them. "I thought something was going to happen…"

"So did I," Regulus admitted.

"He gave me his business card—can you believe it? He just looked at me and said, if you're ever tired of your boss…"

"The Auror office keeping spies in legal firms," Regulus scoffed. "How gentlemanly. Are you really surprised though?"

Sirius sighed. "No. But I also didn't think James would ever…"

"Stoop so low?"

"Be so Slytherin."

Regulus scoffed. "Welcome to desperation, O'Neal," he said. He tapped the shoulder of the guard. "Well?"

"Almost there, Leyre," he returned darkly.

"Is it always so dark in here?" Sirius asked, sounding unconvincingly scared. He rubbed his hands against his arms, shivering.

The guard shrugged. "Crouch is known to be… unpredictable. Precaution. That's all we can have now, isn't it?" He stopped and waved a complicated pattern in front of a door. The door opened, revealing even more darkness.

"Cell number eight," the guard announced. "You have fifteen minutes, Mr. Leyre." Swallowing a foul taste in his mouth, Regulus stepped in.

The room lighted once he was inside, but the sight revealed was hardly what one would call pleasant. The walls were painted in moldy green and gray, and the cell smelled dank, as if it had not been properly ventilated in years. Or perhaps the room received its effect from the sole occupant—Bartemius Crouch Junior, the shiny son of the famous law enforcement officer, sat hunched over the desk. When Regulus entered he sneered, showing all his yellow teeth. Regulus remembered Barty from Hogwarts—a few years below him, but always very groomed, very… oily. He supposed this was another version of oily.

"Well, well, well," Barty taunted. "Look at that. How much did my father offer to hire you?"

"Leave us," Regulus snapped to Sirius, who looked about to protest.

"Now," Regulus repeated, and Sirius left, looking unhappy. When the cell door closed, Regulus sighed and leaned against the chair.

"Hello, Barty," he said casually. Barty, whose eyes had been watching the whole exchange with sly eyes, looked crookedly back at him.

"Well, my father certainly didn't hire you," he mused.

"I'm pretty sure he did," Regulus said. "The real Leyre's somewhere in Camden now."

Barty's mouths momentarily twitched in a sickening smile. "Who are you?"

"What, you don't recognize me?" Regulus tsked. "You're getting slow, Barty."

Barty's eyes narrowed. "Who are you?" he growled. Regulus cracked his knuckles.

"Regulus Black," he said, his name never sounding dirtier.

Barty suddenly made a move to stand up and hurl himself over the desk at him, his hands outstretched as if to choke the life out of him. But the magical handcuffs on his wrists held him back and Barty screamed—in pain or frustration, Regulus couldn't tell.

"YOU TRAITOR!" he shouted, his eyes bulging. "YOU FUCKING HALFBLOOD!"

Regulus supposed that halfblood was the worst insult Barty could come up with. "Traitor?" he hissed, his eyes flashing. "I was mortally injured in a mission—I could barely move for two years. I was wandless, trying to find some way to contact a wizard, any wizard, in middle of nowhere in England. Then I come back to London to find out that the Dark Lord has been defeated and my friends have been calling me a traitor. So don't you dare talk about what you don't understand. _You have no idea what I went through_."

Barty was still huffing, his chest rising and falling at an alarmingly rapid rate, but he was looking at Regulus with a calmer, more reasonable set of eyes. "Is that what happened?" he asked.

"I don't have much time," Regulus said. "They gave only fifteen minutes for this interview. Barty, I know— _I know_ —that the Dark Lord left behind fail-safes, something that'll bring him back if he should ever be injured. I've been looking everywhere for them. Something to bring him back. You know what I'm talking about, don't you?"

Barty hesitated. "How do you I know that I can trust you?" he said. "You've been gone for the past few years, just completely disappeared—"

"You can't," Regulus said. "But let's be honest, I'm the best chance you've got. The lawyer your father hired—he's a good one, but he's not going to get you out of jail, not when you can't stop listing all the things you've done for the Dark Lord—"

"BECAUSE I'M PROUD OF THEM!" Barty shouted. "Some of these people, they don't have any backbone… that Malfoy, for one. I'm proud of all I've done for the Dark Lord and all the services I provided, I'm not going to hide them—are you?" Barty's eyes narrowed. "Hiding behind the mask of someone else, going around fooling everyone… you're as bad as the rest of them, _Black_."

"I'm being smart," Regulus hissed. "What's more important, the pride of being able to declare everything you've done for the Cause, or bringing back the Dark Lord who will right everything? Get your priorities straight, Bartemius Crouch. One day I will own up to everything I've done. Today's not that day."

Barty slumped against the chair, clearly dissatisfied.

"Tell me how I can bring him back," Regulus said. " _Tell me_."

"The Dark Lord made several fail-safes," Barty leaned in, his eyes glittering dangerously—crazily. "Don't ask me how many or where, I don't know about all of them. He was cautious."

Or he didn't trust anyone, Regulus thought bitterly, but shoved the thought aside. "Well?" he prompted.

"One of them's in Hogwarts, where only the people who need him can find it," Barty continued, his voice gaining a hollow, reverent tone. "It's a diadem, an ancient diadem—and the one who puts it on will carry out the will of the Dark Lord."

Regulus nodded. So Voldemort had found the lost Diadem… "Where in Hogwarts, Barty?" he probed.

Barty sighed. "That's as far as I know. He only said that if you really needed to find it, you will."

Regulus frowned. "Is that the best you can do, Crouch?" he said. The glint in Barty's eyes grew fiery.

"I was the most trusted servant of the Dark Lord," he hissed. "The Dark Lord told me everything. _Everything_ , Black, including the things you can only dream of—" But they were interrupted by Sirius, who flung the door open and looked at both of them in panic.

"There's something wrong," he said, and sure enough, without the insulation of the door, Regulus could hear the commotion.

" _Fuck_ ," Regulus swore. Barty chuckled in delight.

"Are you going to join me in Azkaban, Regulus?" he said. "Would love to have your company there."

"Not now, Barty," Regulus said, taking a quick sip of the Polyjuice potion. "Not a word of this to anyone, you understand?"

Barty held up his hands. "Anything for the Dark Lord. Mum's the word."

Regulus nodded and quickly left the cell, locking the door behind him.

"What'd he say?" Sirius asked urgently as they briskly walked toward the exit, but Regulus shushed him, listening intently. Someone was shouting…

"Is that Leyre?" he asked. Sirius directed his ears toward the source of the noise, his position doglike.

"Fuck," he said, nodding. "I thought you knocked him out, Reg."

"I did, he must have some kind of security system that looks for him when he hasn't been in touch," Regulus stomped his foot on the ground in frustration. "Okay. Okay. They don't know about O'Neal yet, so you go out there and yell something about a mad person—"

Sirius didn't need him to finish the sentence, his inner Marauder resurfacing despite years of "adult responsibilities." "Diversion. Good tactic," he nodded. "But how are you going to slip out?"

"No can't apparate out of this floor, which means that I'll have to—slip out behind you. Disillusionment charm."

Sirius considered this. "O'Neal can't go out yelling about a madman. If they come in here and don't find you, they're going to be suspicious of O'Neal. No, it's probably better if you hit me or something—"

" _What_?"

"Some kind of non-lethal injury that'll convince them that I was attacked and had no idea of who you really were," Sirius whispered quickly. "O'Neal's absolutely incompetent, no one's going to care anyway—but they will think that you had some kind of a trick up your sleeve to disappear." The shouting from the other side of the corridor became louder. "Quick, do something—"

"Like what?" Regulus said, shaking his head. "There's got to be something else—"

"Stop being stupid and hit me with a Bat-bogey curse or something—"

"Don't be stupid, no one over the age of sixteen ever uses a that curse—"

" _Well then find something better_!" Sirius hissed. Regulus hesitated, but the yelling from the outside grew chaotic. Before he could make a coherent, reasonable decision, something knocked down the doors with a boom and Regulus cast the first curse that came to his mind, disappearing into the darkness seconds later with a Disillusionment charm.

"HELP!" Sirius yelled pathetically in Leyre's voice. "Help, somebody HELP!" Guards rushed to his side and Regulus slipped by them, quietly tiptoeing the edge of the corridor. When he arrived at the hall, Leyre, with his purple face, was fuming at the top of his lungs and Potter was listening to him, looking very unhappy.

"You!" Leyre yelled as Sirius-O'Neal was half-dragged, half-escorted from the hallway. "Are you in on this, too?"

"Mr. Leyre?" Sirius said, his voice in every respect the epitome of confusion. "What's going on? OH MY GOD, is the entire Ministry trying to kill me? I didn't do anything, I swear, Mr. Leyre just came out of the cell and attacked me—"

"Search the entire floor," Potter said to some of the guards. "And you—O'Neal, wasn't it?—calm down. Just tell us exactly what happened—" But Regulus couldn't stay here watching the spectacle. He inched toward the exit, but some of the guards were already there.

Regulus calculated his chances. He could try to make a run for it, but it would make it easier for them to notice an invisible physical presence—and a simple homenum revelio could take care of that in an instant. No, his best chances were—

" _Stupify_ ," he muttered, pointing his own wand at one of the guards. He fell to the ground seconds later and other reacted, looking around in panic.

" _He's still here_!"

"Quick, the exits—"

"Mister Potter—"

"I will sue the Ministry, Potter—"

"I don't understand, what's going on—"

"Find him! FIND HIM!"

Then everything went dark.

Regulus took a deep breath. The exit, if he rembered correctly, was to his right side the last time he saw it. And bumping into people shouldn't be a problem, no one could see anything anyway—

But someone grasped his arm. Then came the oh-too-familiar voice, so soft, so strong.

"This way."


	8. February 25th, 1982

A/N: I'm back! I know the updates have been slow, but thank you to all those who have been keeping up with the story. I know it's been a long time coming.

Special thanks to and their kind words! You made my day:)

* * *

Sirius was proud to say that he never shied away from new experiences.

He supposed that being held for interrogation in the Auror office was a kind of a new experience.

"So," James sat in front of him, drumming his fingertips against the tabletop. Sirius figured that this laid-back, cool kind of a demeanor was James' interrogation face—and he was a little disappointed. Didn't Sirius teach him better during their years at Hogwarts? Little Prongsie seemed to be a bit too lenient with him. But remembering that O'Neal's usual demeanor resembled that of a terrified rat, Sirius schooled his expression into something a bit more… wary, at least.

"You're telling me that you were just following Leyre's orders," James continued. Sirius nodded vigorously.

"Honestly, I had no idea—"

"Yeah, I got that part," James interrupted him impatiently. "What I _don't_ get is how you don't manage to realize that the imposter's not the guy you worked for every day for the last four years." Sirius cowered in his seat.

"Is Mr. Leyre mad at me?" he asked in a small voice.

"Never mind that now," James huffed. "But in case you're really curious, yes, he is quite mad at you. He's pacing behind the glass wall as we speak."

Sirius sighed pitifully.

"Is there nothing out of the ordinary? Nothing that you noticed?" James pressed. Sirius rocked back and forth in his chair, trying to think hard about how much of a wild goose chase he wanted James to be on.

"I don't know," he sighed. "Is there anything that I should have been looking for?"

"No, of course not," James said. "But… anything, really. Some kind of hair on his clothes that didn't match, some emblem on his bag, anything." He looked probingly at Sirius and Sirius looked into the air thoughtfully.

"I mean, I guess… he smelled a bit like… cats, you know? When he came into the office this morning, I thought I smelled… cats, and I thought it was just the rain. And I knew that Mr. Leyre didn't keep cats… so I thought maybe… y'know… he'd found a lady friend… but I didn't want to seem nosy or make him angry, so I didn't say anything… Should have I?"

"Cats," James repeated in disbelief. Sirius shrugged apologetically. James cursed.

"I'm sorry that I can't be of more help," Sirius said. "Really, I wish that I could do something—"

"That's fine," James said, his mind already drifting off to some other possibility that he should pursue. Sirius bit his lips hesitantly.

"I mean, do you have any idea who it might've been?" he asked. "It's just—completely unbelievable, you know? To think that you were with someone mental for two hours…"

James smiled humorlessly. "For someone who works in law, you're awfully faint-hearted, Mr. O'Neal."

"Oh, I just think it's better to be careful, with all the people I come across during work…"

"We don't know yet, but we'll let you and Leyre know if we find anything." James' face darkened. "As he's threatened us multiple times to sue us if we don't get to the bottom of this incident, I suspect that there will be regular updates."

Sirius nodded, counting in his head the minutes since he'd taken a sip of the Polyjuice potion. He should have enough time left, provided that James let him go soon enough… but he still had to take care of Leyre unconscious in his apartment, would need to confound him a bit…

And Regulus. It seemed that the Aurors haven't caught him yet, or James would've heard about it.

"If you don't mind, I should—talk to Mr. Leyre, and, y'know, take care of stuff…"

James nodded. "Alright. Thanks for your help." They stood up and James held out the door for him, following him out the interrogation room. Sirius was about to nod James good-bye when one of the Aurors approached them.

"Hey, Potter, I just heard about Lily, congratulations!" he said, patting James on the shoulder. James smiled brightly, for a moment looking like the James who'd roamed the halls of Hogwarts with Sirius.

"Thanks, we're both really pleased…" at Sirius/O'Neal's inquiring look, James brushed off the congratulations.

"My wife's pregnant for the second time," he said, his voice gaining the proud tone that James simply couldn't seem to help whenever the subject involved Lily Potter nee Evans.

"Oh!" Sirius said, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice. Prongsie and Lily's having their second child, and _he_ didn't hear about it? Him, Harry Potter's godfather? "When is she due?" he asked innocuously. James smiled.

"About seven months, we only found out few weeks ago." He patted Sirius on his shoulder. "Leyre's in the other room over there, I think he wants to talk to you."

"Thanks, thank you—and congratulations…" but before Sirius could congratulate his best mate fully, James disappeared into his office—presumably, to work on finding the Leyre imposter. Sirius felt his heart fall.

How can James not tell him about their second child?

His feet carried him to the main lobby of the Ministry, his ears vaguely aware of Leyre's loud, scratch voice telling him to stop. But Sirius couldn't be bothered to listen to his fake boss. Grabbing a handful of floo powder in the floo station, he gave the address of O'Neal's apartment and landed in his unkept fireplace.

O'Neal was still on his sofa where Sirius had left him, his left arm having slid off the cushion. Sirius prodded his shoulder with the tip of his wand. No response. O'Neal must be even more sensitive to sleeping droughts than Sirius thought.

" _Confundus_ ," he muttered, concentrating on the memories that O'Neal would have to have—going to work that morning, the Ministry, the interrogation—it would be fine if the memory was a little hazy—and coming back him exhausted. This should give O'Neal enough to work with. Confudus charm was never his strength, but Sirius thought that he'd done a decent enough job.

He checked his watch. Still about ten minutes until the Polyjuice Potion wore off, and Sirius could walk down the streets as Sirius Black again. Better start returning O'Neal's clothes back to him.

* * *

The hand that gripped his arm firmly led him through a labyrinth of corridors, most of them almost completely dark. Regulus lost count on how many turns they took, which direction they were facing (north, maybe?), but he supposed that he must be granted at least some leniency. He was with Alex again, for the first time in years. Her hand on his arm. His heart beat erratically in his chest, and Regulus couldn't tell if this was due to the danger of being caught or something else entirely.

But he couldn't see her, not really, with the darkness. All he could make out was a vague silhouette, a tall frame and almost silent footsteps. He didn't know how she managed to find her way with almost no light, but he didn't dare ask. He wasn't sure if he could talk right now. Abruptly, she stopped in her spot.

"We're going into the atrium now," Alex said. "I don't suppose you have a different set of clothes?"

"I have Sirius', I don't think they'll fit Leyre." Odd how he sounded almost… normal. Talking to her.

Was the first sentence he said to her after all these years to be about Sirius' clothes?

"Disguise will have to do," she answered. "Stand still." Without waiting for much response, she tapped her wand against his face. Regulus flexed his facial muscles reflexively.

"Now," she muttered, and, pushing open a door that he couldn't see, she dragged him into the light.

It was the busiest part of the Ministry, and they were immediately pulled into a throng of moving people who were intent on going about their business. Regulus had a hard time navigating through the crowd—he couldn't help but shirk away from everyone, afraid of being discovered, recognized, even though he knew that it was a ridiculous notion. He caught a reflection of himself against one of the tiles on the wall—Alex had given him a moustache, along with a set of bushy eyebrows and bulbous lips. He looked comical, but at least his face didn't resemble Leyre's wry expression.

"Here," she said, suddenly pulling him aside. Regulus stumbled into a small booth and Alex followed him inside. Before he could protest or say anything about their proximity, Alex turned to-the telephone? She dialed something and the booth began to move up slowly.

Regulus swallowed.

The ride in the telephone booth might as well have lasted a lifetime. Leyre was barely taller than Alex, which meant that they stood at an eye level of each other. Regulus looked down, unable to look at her fully in the face. Alex, in turn, turned sideways every few seconds, as if she were checking for some kind of a glitch in the contraption. Regulus didn't know what he should do—keenly aware of the middle-aged body that he occupied (Leyre was not the one for exercise, it seemed) and how she'd just—well, aided a fugitive in escaping from the Ministry officials (and breaking several security codes in the process, as Regulus doubted that the dark corridors they used were open to the public), exactly what could he do or say to make up for what he'd done to her, and what she'd done for him?

"Thank you," he finally managed hoarsely. Regulus immediately cleared his throat, looking away. Alex looked at him for the briefest of seconds before turning away.

"Sirius contacted me. He said that you were being reckless."

Regulus bit his lips. So Sirius had called her, was it? If he thought about it, that was only natural—Sirius had reservations about their moving their plan too quickly, and it wasn't as if Alex had sensed that Regulus had been in danger and dropped everything else to save him. But he still didn't like the fact that Sirius had contacted her to tell her that his little brother needed help.

"I see." And that was all he could say. The booth finally reached the ground level and Regulus looked out the glass windowpane. It was still raining.

It was still raining, but there was one man leaning against the telephone booth, his neck drooping to his chest, his hat worn so lowly that almost half of his face was concealed by tartan. Before Regulus could point out how suspicious that was—perhaps he was another ministry official—Alex burst out of the booth and tapped the man on the shoulder.

Something happened. Regulus couldn't tell what. The man's posture straightened to reveal a tall, broad frame barely hidden by the trench coat. He adjust his hat so that he could better see, and the face that was revealed made Regulus' heart clench most painfully.

Of all the people, why did it have to be him?

Henryk Lee's face broke into a wide smile when he saw Alex. He drew her into a tight embrace, rocking both of them side to side. That's what—what _their_ reunion should've been like, except that it couldn't have been like that, because—because of what he did, not because of anyone like Lee. At least, that's what Regulus tried to tell himself, but watching the way Lee held her—the way the held each other—as if some kind of magnetic force pulled them together, and they couldn't help but be attached to each other—made his neck burn in the winter rain.

Judging from the look that Lee gave him when Alex wasn't looking, Regulus surmised that Lee wasn't particularly pleased to see him, either.

"You're safe," Lee stated the obvious. Alex pulled away from him enough to regard him within the arm's length.

"So are you," she said, stroking the hair that made its way from beneath the stupid hat. Regulus looked away, unable to bear it anymore.

Hearing from Sirius indirectly that Alex was seeing someone almost made sense to him. They broke up when they were sixteen, for Merlin's sake, and they were now twenty-one, twenty-two. People got over their teenage crushes, and considering the circumstances under which they broke up, Regulus knew that he had absolutely no right to foster foolish hopes, like that Alex would always care for him, and that she would never look at another person romantically. In fact, the opposite was much more likely (and natural) scenario and by all reason he should've been happy for her that she found someone, especially if that person was devoted to her. This much he'd told himself that night he was carried back from the Gaunt Place, telling himself to stop being so stupid, and that he was mature enough to wish her the best.

The reality of seeing her in front of him with Lee was a completely different matter.

Jealousy was the strongest beast, throttling his throat, running rampage through his veins. Impossible to resist, had it not been for remorse that recognized how he'd landed in his place, how they've all landed in this place—through his mistake, wrong decisions, youthful pride. But envy in turn threatened to swallow any tinge of remorse Regulus felt, envy at Lee, who was—he was loathe to admit—strong, and handsome, and intelligent, and kind (Regulus especially hated this part), and, lastly, loved by Alex. That much was apparent from a single glance at them.

But the rational side of him—the only side of him that kept him going through the years despite all the changes—told him to stop being stupid.

 _You wished, despite everything, that she still felt something for you. She doesn't. She's with someone else now. And now you know this yourself, you have to move on and continue. Continue hunting down the Horcruxes and destroying every last one of them._

The idea of Horcruxes brought him back into reality.

"I have to go find Sirius," Regulus said, looking at nowhere in particular. "I have to make sure that he's alright."

"We agreed to meet back in my house if anything happened," Alex said. "Do you have a wand to apparate, or—"

"It's fine," Regulus said, mortified by the prospect of having to borrow a wand from her in front of him. He rummaged through the backpack that he'd shrunk and hidden in one of Leyre's pockets and finally found the temporary wand that he'd borrowed from Sirius. Regulus paused.

"Where do you live?"

Alex's eyes gained a strange look, a guarded and wistful at the same time. Their eyes met for the first time and something in Regulus that he already thought was broken was shattered to pieces again.

"Devon," Alex murmured. "If you can't apparate there by yourself, Henryk can help you." Without waiting for a response (she's been doing that a lot), she disappeared with a crack. Regulus stared at the spot that she'd been moments ago, trying to comprehend what was going on. Next to him Lee stirred.

"I can manage by myself," Regulus said tersely, the memory of her house in the Muggle town and the week he'd spent there with her far too vivid in his mind. Without answering, Lee disappeared with another crack.

Regulus sighed and wiped the rain off his face. Beneath his palm he felt his own face, and looked down to find Leyre's clothes too short and baggy on him. It seemed that he'd transformed back to his own self without even noticing. Perhaps all the feelings that bubbled inside him, enraging every fiber of his being, was only the work of a potion.

He cursed, far too aware of the truth.

He still loved her, that was all.

* * *

When the Black brothers reunited a few minutes later, they felt an immediate bond between two foul moods. Regulus couldn't tell why Sirius was in a bad mood, and was in no condition to explain how seeing Alex made him feel, so the conversation went somewhere like this:

"Alright?" Translation: did the Auror office give you a hard time?

"James." Had to talk to James, and I had to lie to him, which I didn't like at all.

"Plan." You had to stick to the plan.

At this Sirius gave Regulus an annoyed expression.

"You can apologize for it later."

"I'll have to explain before I apologize for anything."

"That _is_ tricky."

"Oh, why do I even—"

"Sorry, I think we're out of milk," Alex's voice carried from the kitchen. A few seconds later, her head popped from the doorframe. Her gaze was mostly on Sirius. "It shouldn't take too long to go buy it, but we could also have tea without milk—"

"Nonsense," Sirius said bracingly, standing up. "We'll go to one of the Muggle stores right now. There's got to be one nearby, right?"

"Yeah…" Alex said, looking uncertainly at Regulus for the first time. "Do you remember the way?" she asked quickly. Regulus for his part was taken aback by her reference to the time he'd spent at her house all the years ago—he didn't know if that was one of the off-limit topics or not.

To be honest, he didn't know anything anymore, really.

"I think so," Regulus replied quietly, not quite meeting her eyes.

"Let's go," Sirius said, practically pushing Regulus' back out of the house. For once, Regulus complied.

Being in her old home didn't ease his tension. The living room seemed to have barely changed since the last time he'd seen it. The sofa was different—Regulus remembered the sofa that he'd slept on—and some of the decorations on the wall were taken down, but atmosphere of the living room was the same—small but cozy, practical but not austere. When Regulus saw it for the first time, the first word that popped into his head was _Muggle_ , that Alex lived in an utterly Muggle household with Muggle neighbors who didn't deserve her, and that when she graduated and started to realize her potential as a clever witch, she'd move on to better things, magical things with a magical place, but—all he saw now was the security of the house, the warmth that Sophia Wilson had attempted to give her daughter, the reluctant mother who nevertheless welcomed her daughter's prejudiced best friend, the mother of a friend whom he'd done nothing to aid. Shame hit him much more forcefully than rain and it hindered him from laying his eyes on any object for more than a second, feeling as though he was defiling everything around him by doing so.

"Nice town, this," Sirius said, kicking a pebble moodily. The winter air in Devon was much milder than that in London, and Regulus had to admit that this town felt—secure, despite the terrible childhood that he knew Alex had here.

"Yes," he answered, looking around. "It is." The sincerity in Regulus' voice seemed to strike Sirius, who regarded his brother with a bit more attention.

"You think?" Sirius raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Can't imagine you anywhere other than at Grimmauld place, to be honest."

Regulus ruminated on this for a while. "Y'know—before you—got disowned—"

"Before I ran away, you mean."

"That, too… I used to dream about… living somewhere remote. With a big library but not much else and… just away from everyone. I thought that would be a happy kind of life."

Sirius was quiet for a few seconds before saying:

"With her, you mean."

Somehow Regulus thought he could still play dumb.

"I don't know what you mean."

Sirius shrugged. "She was the only girl you were remotely interested in during your… pathetic preadolescent years."

Regulus decided not to take the bait on the preadolescent comment. "She was a friend."

Sirius raised an incredulous eyebrow.

"She was," Regulus insisted. "We got along. She didn't know anything about the Black family, and I felt like I could talk to her. It was probably the same with you and Potter, no? He didn't treat you like some dirty Slytherin." The name James Potter seemed to sober his brother substantially.

"How did it begin, then?" Sirius asked instead. Regulus paused as the traffic light changed, considering.

"Here," he said eventually. "It began here." And the more he thought about it the truer it seemed. Alex never said much about what her life was like back home, other than that she lived with her mother in a small Muggle town. Seeing the things that made her unhappy—they made him irrationally unhappy, and for the first time in his short life (fourteen, Regulus supposed caustically, was a good time to foster such feelings) he wanted to protect her from everything and everyone that made her unhappy. The memory of his time spent with her at Hogwarts, all that time conversing in the library, mixed irrevocably with the reality that she faced and, for the first time, Regulus felt as though he understood someone—as if he saw her clearly. Regulus shook his head. As if Alex was ever someone who needed protecting… and he didn't know at that time that he would end up being the worst offender in her memory.

Sirius kicked another stone in apparent dissatisfaction and Regulus decided that if he let Sirius continue in his gloomy contemplation any further, they would end up being the worst kind of guests.

"What happened?"

Sirius was like a dog who, at the first encouragement, came leaping toward a bone. "LilyispregnantwithasecondbabyandJamesdidn'ttellmeeventhoughhe'sknownforafewweeks."

It was thanks to the childhood they spent together that Regulus was able to discern all the words. "I see," he said merely, not quite sure how he felt about his brother's relationship with James Potter just yet. On the one hand, Potter was a giant prat, still was probably, and egged his older brother on in his worst plans—denouncing the "Slytherin agenda," running away from the family, etc. And yet—he looked after Sirius when he needed a place to stay. During the war. Managed to keep him alive. No mean feat, Regulus knew, knowing how much Sirius loved danger. Regulus knew that, despite his remonstrance of Regulus' recklessness in destroying the Horcruxes, Sirius enjoyed the excitement that this new mission presented to him, and that he would stick around until the end, if not for Regulus' sake, then for his own.

" _I see_?" Sirius said, outraged. "My best mate didn't tell me, the godfather of his first child, that he's expecting another child, and all you can say is _I see_?"

"If Potter suspects you of doing something illegal and that's why he hasn't said anything, then it only reflects poorly on him," Regulus said coolly. "If he were a true friend he should've trusted you, whatever his suspicions were."

Sirius looked wearily at him for a few seconds, as if he was looking at a complete stranger.

"Since when do you know so much about friendships?"

"Oh, I don't know," Regulus said, opening the store door with a heavy heart. "I suspect that botching up a relationship with one friend you have really teaches you things."

Sirius patted Regulus on the head, as if he were a pet dog.

"Poor Reggie," he said. "Do you want chocolate biscuit?"

Sirius received a swift kick in the shin for a response.

* * *

Lee was pouring tea into large mugs, looking like he belonged in the house. And Regulus had to concede that Lee did—something about the way he moved said that he was as much a big a part of this household as Alex was, that he knew his way around the house like the back of his hand. _He_ never would've looked at this house and thought Muggle, and that it was beneath Alex. _He_ never would've tried to change Alex or her ways. He just found his way into her life, trying to be there for her in any way that he could. Regret and jealousy battled inside Regulus' mind, and he didn't know if he hated Lee, or if he truly hated Lee.

"Thanks for all this," Sirius said amiably, probably aware of Regulus' murderous mood that he didn't quite manage to conceal. _Stop it_ , Regulus scolded himself. The only thing worse than being in the same room with Alex's current—Regulus didn't even know what the fitting word was here—boyfriend? Companion? Lover? –was being in the same room with Alex's current whatever, and showing that he was in a bad mood.

"It's not a problem," Lee said easily. Regulus accepted the cup that he offered him, muttering a low thanks under his breath.

"Thanks for coming, by the way," Sirius said, also accepting a cup. "I know I contacted you two at the last minute, but I felt like—"

"It's fine," Lee interrupted. "It was our day off anyway." Sirius nodded. At this moment Alex came down from upstairs, having showered the rain from her hair. Regulus stared. She was in sweatpants and an old green sweater, and the hair was in disarray from drying haphazardly with a towel. The very picture of domestic carelessness. And she never looked lovelier.

Sirius caught him staring and elbowed him in the ribs, hard. Wincing, Regulus retracted into the sofa, taking care not to spill the tea.

Too late.

"So what's the verdict?" Alex asked, sitting down across from them. She looked between Sirius and Regulus, waiting for them to respond.

Sirius turned to look at Regulus as well. "What _did_ the young Crouch kid say?"

"I don't know how much you know—" Regulus began, addressing no one in the room in particular.

"I told them everything," Sirius said.

"Everything?" Regulus said, feeling ins unsteady temper flare. "I told you that this is all—"

"Dangerous stuff, yeah, but if you don't recall, we were all Order members, we're made of some stronger stuff—"

"I'm not just talking about physical danger, you prat, you know that they can get implicated in this if any of us is ever caught—"

"So we'll make sure not to get caught—"

"We almost got caught in the Ministry—"

"Escaped with a nick of time, didn't we? Have more faith in—"

"This is just the beginning, you know that there's Azkaban, and Hogwarts—"

"Would you stop being such a drama queen, Reg, it's not like you're going to do them all alone anyway—"

" _Me_? _You_ 're calling _me_ a drama queen?"

"BOYS!" Alex yelled, looking tired, and—could it be?—faintly amused. "As much as I know how much you two love to argue… I think Regulus is right to want to finish this as soon as possible."

Sirius huffed. "Not you, too."

"It's not just about getting an unpleasant business out of the way," Alex said carefully. "You know how I often have to travel, with work and everything, and run into some people—long story short, there are more people than you know who would love to see Voldemort back."

"They don't know about the Horcruxes, do they?" Sirius asked quickly. Alex shook her head.

"But the thought's already there. What if they manage to contact one of the Death Eaters who knows something, and begin to put things together? It's too risky, letting them lie dormant wherever they are, and it could be tomorrow that one of them falls into the hands of a wrong person."

"But they're well-hidden," Lee spoke up for the first time since the informal meeting began. "One was found in a cave on a cliffside. Another in an abandoned house in a Muggle town. It's unlikely that someone's just going to stumble onto one." Was Regulus imagining things, or did Lee look like he was chastising Alex?

From Alex's pursed lips, it was clear that they had the conversation before.

"Hear, hear," Sirius said.

"I want to get this over with," Alex said quietly.

"I know you do," Lee said, laying his hand on hers. "But you're pushing yourself too hard to do this." Alex looked away, and it was only due to the years that Regulus had known her that he could read the expression on her face.

She looked guilty. And apologetic.

Why?

"We should take our time," Sirius volunteered. "We already have two Horcruxes already, and no practical way to get rid of them. Maybe we should focus on obtaining something that can destroy a Horcrux."

"There's always Fiendfyre," Regulus murmured. Sirius wrinkled his nose.

"I know you don't like Dark magic—" Regulus began.

"Really, now do you imagine that you're going to fight Dark magic with Dark magic?"

"As long as we are able to contain the fire, it shouldn't be a problem, should it?" Lee interjected, sounding infuriatingly reasonable even though he was agreeing with Regulus. "That shouldn't be difficult, no?" He looked at Alex for confirmation, but Alex hesitated.

"It's just—the fire will destroy the object," she said quietly. "And the ring—"

"Alex—" Lee began to protest.

"I think the ring's one of the Deathly Hallows," Alex continued, looking straight into Regulus' eyes for the first time.

Regulus' head was in jumbles. Partly due to the gaze from her eyes, but also—Deathly Hallows? That old legend? He remembered reading it as a child, and rereading it when he and Alex were researching in the library, trying to find out more about her father, but—

That was a children's story.

His skepticism must've shown on his face, because she stood up anxiously and retrieved the ring from—the drawer of the side table.

Sirius raised his eyebrow. "A bit too public a place to store Voldemort's soul, don't you think?"

She didn't appear to be listening. "Look at the mark on the stone," she said instead, passing it to Regulus, still looking earnestly at his face. Regulus took the ring dumbly and looked closely at the dulled surface. There was a bit of geometrical shape, but really—

"It's the mark, I know it is," Alex continued. There was an odd note to her voice, something trembling, that Regulus didn't know how to recognize—was he allowed to do such things anymore?

"I suppose it could be," Regulus conceded. "But I also wouldn't put it past Gaunt to have scratched it on there himself, you know? To argue that he had connections to the Peverell family."

"And risk defacing a family heirloom?" Alex said in the same desperate tone. "That's unlikely, don't you—"

" _Alex_ ," Lee repeated, and the firmness in his voice stopped her this time. She retreated into her armchair, looking apologetic again.

"Sorry," she muttered, and looked down at her mug.

"What about the locket?" Sirius, who'd been observing the exchange silently thus far, asked, probably trying to lighten the mood. "Anyone against destroying that blood-sucking maniac's locket?"

Regulus rummaged through his backpack again, glad to have reasons to divert his gaze to someone other than Alex, who seemed to have retracted into herself, and Lee, who was apparently having harder time than Regulus in disguising his murderous feelings toward him.

"Not at all," he said, pulling out the locket from the bottom of the bag. All four of them stared at the shiny metalwork for a while, aware that it contained the possibility of the death of millions, tears of children, permanent separation of families and friends.

"Let's get on with it, shall we?" Sirius asked briskly. Regulus looked confusedly at his brother.

"Exactly what are we supposed to do?"

"Cast the fire," Lee said. "And Alex can—if you're ready, that is," he added quickly, noticing the look on her face. Regulus saw it fully for the first time as well. It was nothing short of heartbreak.

But she merely nodded and Regulus told himself again that he had no business inquiring.

"Make the curse strong," Alex said quietly to the ground. "It has to last a while." Regulus nodded. Sirius dangled the chain a few feet away from him, looking, for the first time, a little apprehensive.

"Ready?" Regulus nodded and cast the familiar curse.

Before the fire could grow and spread, however, a golden globe enveloped the flames, containing the massive, angry flames underneath its smooth surface. The impermeable layer shimmered slightly as it hung suspended in midair, containing the destructive force within its boundaries. It took Regulus a few moments to realize that it was Alex who had cast this charm—and without a wand, it seemed. Her brows were furrowed in concentration. The shield glowed more brightly, as if reflecting her efforts.

"What is that?" he wandered out loud, unable to help it.

"The mark of Wymond," Lee answered, observing Regulus' face. "Don't you remember? It saved you once before, I think."

His mind raced back all the years ago, trying to figure out what Lee was saying. And then it hit him—Halloween. Ten years ago. The pumpkin pastries, Edge, the sixth-year Ravenclaws and—how Alex somehow pushed them into the staircase from five feet away. The beginning of their friendship.

The mark of Wymond, Lee said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. A few things began to click in Regulus' mind.

The shield ran in the family, on Alex's father's side.

Lee knew who Alex was, who her father was, when he arrived at Hogwarts.

The Wymonds were associated with the legend of the Conservato, the silly superstition about the Darkhiders…

But before his mind could make the final leap, the flames flickered out inside the globe and ashes fell on the tea table. They all let out a long breath that they'd been holding, feeling the pungent smell of burnt metal attack their olfactory senses.

"Is that it?" Sirius asked quietly.

"That's it," Alex confirmed. And that was that.

* * *

After the destruction of the locket, none of them seemed to be able to find the motivation to continue the discussion on their future strategy and Sirius decided that they'd overstayed their welcome in Alex's house despite her invitation to them to stay for dinner (presumably, he'd noticed Regulus squirming in his seat). Instead they ended up at a kebab joint near his flat in London, hunched over the greasy surface of a long table. Regulus watched Sirius wolf down the sandwich, not having much appetite on his part.

"Who's Peverell? And what's the ring got to do with it?" Sirius finally asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Regulus sighed.

"The three brothers in the legend—they're thought to be part from the Peverell family. You remember the legend?"

"Vaguely."

"The second brother asked Death for a gift—a stone that'll resurrect a dead person."

"And Alex doesn't want to destroy the ring because—oh," Sirius paused, looking forlorn. Regulus swallowed the bitter taste in his mouth.

"She lost her mother," Regulus said quietly, adding in his head, _because of me. If I had been better, she wouldn't have lost so much…_

"And many others. We all did," Sirius said quietly, looking less hungry that he'd seemed before. Regulus sighed.

"Why wouldn't Henryk let her use the ring, if she's right about it?" Sirius asked. Regulus shrugged.

"Who knows," he said. "But the legend says that the second brother was driven to madness—the stone can't actually resurrect the dead, you know. It was a pale imitation of life, and—it's not good for the living."

Sirius seemed to consider this.

"Y'know, he's been good for her," he said randomly.

"What?"

"Henryk. There was a time—I dunno much about it, to be honest—when Alex was a bit obsessed about defeating Voldemort. Almost—possessed by the idea, really. Even Mad-Eye Moody was scared of her. And Henryk sort of… brought her back into reality again. Helped her remember that there's life outside the war, y'know? That she had to live for peace, not for—death and destruction."

Regulus stared at his glass of water but didn't respond.

"I'm just saying," Sirius said, trying to lighten his tone. "Today at their house, it sort of seemed like… she was pulled into that way of thinking again, and Henryk wasn't really pleased about it."

" _You_ contacted her, Sirius."

"Because I was worried that _you_ were getting to obsessed with this thing!" Sirius yelled defensively. "Okay, maybe I wasn't thinking too much about her, and that's my fault, but—" Sirius sighed. "I don't think some people ever get over this, Reg. And we're supposed to be the good people, you know? We should get to live our lives."

You should. Not me.

"You will, Sirius," Regulus said, thinking about Alex and the desperate, heartbroken look in her eyes. "You will."


End file.
